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THE HEART 
OF THINGS 



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BY 
EM.WALKER 



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The Heart of Things 



The Heart of Things 



BY 

H. M. WALKER 



THE SEGNOGRAM PUBLISHING CO. 

LOS ANGELES, CAL. 

1906 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
One (fcpy Rxeived 

SEP , 5 1906 

Coftyngnt Entry 
5LASS/ Ct XXc. No. 

copy e. ' 



■BD43S 
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Copyright 1906 

BY 

H. M. WALKER 



We grow through expression — and if you know things, there is a strong 
desire to express them. It is Nature's way of deepening our impressions — 
this thing of recounting them. And, happy, indeed, are you if you know a 
soul with whom you can converse at your hest. — Elhert Hubbard. 



INTRODUCTION 

"All is eligible to All, 
All is for individuals, all is for you, 
No condition is prohibited, not God's or any." 

—Walt Whitman. 



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HEN Greek meets Greek"— look out! 
When Love meets Love, look in! 
The human being does not live who 
is not susceptible to the touch of 
Love. It makes no difference who 
the man or woman, nor how cal- 
loused the heart has grown in this 
fight for bread, and the mad rush 
for place, and pelf and power, if 
Love will place her hand upon the 
arm, and whisper the word of sym- 
pathy into the hardened ear, and to 
the heart-sick soul, the whole com- 
plexion of life will change and a 
responsive chord, long dead, shall be 
awakened. Sympathy, the world 
needs more than salvation. The 
man whose life has been unprofit- 
able; whose hopes have not been 
realized; whose faith in his fellows 
has been shaken, and who feels that 
emptiness of life which brings a 
longing to the heart for fellowship ; 
to him Love can go and he will 
listen. 

|f There are times in the experience 
of us all when we labor seemingly 
in vain ; when companions desert us 
7 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and sympathy flows ever in the opposite direction. 
At such times we grope as in the dark for a beam of 
light to lighten our way, and it does not come. We 
do not know which way to turn, and the cry of the 
heart is for sympathy ! Sympathy ! Love ! 
In writing this book the writer has sought to avoid 
all superfluity of expression and has given in the 
simplest words at his command the thoughts that have 
come in those quiet moments with Hank. With no 
thought of creating a sensation, and no desire to ad- 
vance some fine theory, but just to get close to your 
heart, and, as brother to brother, reason with you 
about those little things that cling to us and cause us 
pain and sometimes joy. 

fl I introduce to you my closest friend, to whom the 
book is dedicated. A quaint character is he; so sober 
and subdued, and yet as real to me as the physical 
presence of any reader of these lines. He lives as you 
and I live ; feeling with us the oozing of life's wine, 
and noting the falling of life's leaves from the tree we 
call Ourselves. And yet, never a frown upon his brow, 
nor a ruffle in his spirits. To my friend, Hank Reklaw, 
I introduce you. And Hank is as much your friend as 
mine; he lives his life as near you as to me. He is 
that Other Self. 

No incident in my life is too insignificant for him to 
note; no sorrow comes that he is not present to give 
comfort, and no joy that he does not share. To him 
this work is dedicated, because it is his by right of 
authorship, fl I give back to him his own. 
What inspiration you draw from it, if any, credit to 

8 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

his account. And if, perchance, expression is given to 
thoughts that conflict with those of every-day, draw 
your chair closer to his, and reason it out with him. 
Speaking from personal experience, I always have 
found Hank a reasonable fellow. He will give way to 
you many times, just to tease. Oft in my life he has 
borne me "glad tidings" wrapped closely in deep folds 
of crepe, and much agony has been mine while he 
calmly stood without, thumping heavily at my soul's 
door with an idea that I did not like. 
Hank is the other half of me, as he is the other half 
of you. I know him well — so well that he can say 
many things to me I would not bear from another. 
Sometimes he speaks to me — I know not why — and 
were it not for the love I know he has for me, the 
sting of his words would break the heart. He speaks 
on, and all the while my soul is resentful; but as he 
reasons to me of Life and Light and Love, and carries 
me away in the silent hours of my life's night, I feel 
the very impulses that you feel ; my thoughts become 
your thoughts, my love your love. We are One in all 
but the temple of flesh with which the soul is clothed, 
and behind which we hide that Other Self. 
And so, in drawing close to Hank's heart, I draw close 
to yours. Arm-in-arm we see things together, if not 
alike. There is but one Real Self. To me that Real 
Self is Hank Reklaw. You may know him by an- 
other name, but his thoughts will be i:he same, for he 
is the same. This temporal body of flesh and blood 
and bone and tissue may be scattered to the winds 
like the bursting of a soap bubble, but Hank shall live 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

on because he is the Real. In him is the essence of 

Truth. We are but pigmies in his hands — shadows 

of the Real. 

When he talks to me he tells me what the world has 

ever known— what you know — what others know. His 

character is more real than the transitory person the 

world knows as you and I — here today, gone tomorrow 

—but that Other Self— the One Real Self of all, of 

which we reflect only a part — lives on and on, and 

shall ever live. 

To that Other Self of You, I dedicate this book. 

H. M. W. 
Los Angeles, Cal., April 22, 1906. 



I BELIEVE that All came from God, All is God, 
and All will return to God. What our position 
is before death, it will be after death. If we are given 
over to greed, avarice and hatred in this city, our 
companions will be companions of greed, avarice and 
hatred in that city. We get what we give here, and 
we will get what we give there. Hate, and hate will 
return to you; love, and love will come back to you; 
trust others, and others will trust you; mistrust 
others, and you will be mistrusted; see none of God 
in your fellow men, and your fellow men will see none 
of God in you. 

10 



SOUL STARVATION 



"Walk while ye have the light, lest dark- 
ness come upon you." 



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T was in the early morning; the sun 
was just climbing the eastern hills 
and its bright, warm rays shot over 
the rugged mountain peaks down 
into the valley. Out in the meadow 
the birds sang their morning praise, 
anthem-wise; the dew sparkled on 
the green leaves, and all was happi- 
ness in Nature's home. 
As I sat dreaming, a man came 
along the road and sat in the shade 
near me. He was an old man — sore 
tried. He did not hear the singing 
birds, because he did not have them 
in his heart ; did not feel the warmth 
of the sunshine, although he was 
hot; did not see the sparkling dew- 
drop, the azure sky, the green 
meadows, nor the grand, rugged 
hills standing, sentinel-like, over all. 
He only saw what was reflected 
from within his own sore heart, and 
as he looked he lamented, fl Life to 
him was incessant hardship. He had 
toiled as few men had ever toiled; 
he had saved, and skimped and 
squeezed, and by this means had 
amassed a fortune. He no longer 
ii 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

had to watch the pennies — he did not want to see 
them, fl He wanted wealth in his earlier days. Now 
he had it. fl But there was something he did not have, 
which he would give the world to possess. He could 
not give expression to his soul. It had shrivelled up. 
fl The saucy birds could sing — they were happy — 
while he, with wealth untold, was miserable. So bent 
on getting riches he had been that he did not take 
time to develop the ability to be happy. Now, with 
all his wealth he could not buy it. He had wealth 
without the capacity to enjoy it. He tried to have a 
good time, but he did not know how. He spent his 
money upon himself. He did not know another on 
whom to lavish it. He did not love and could not serve. 
ft You see, dear heart, the happiness that lasts — the joy 
that stays with you — is not for sale; nor can it be 
acquired in an atmosphere of luxury and plenty. The 
old man could buy temporal comforts and indul- 
gences, but content and peace could not be purchased. 
fl With wealth, as with poverty, there must come wis- 
dom, else there can be no happiness. And Wisdom 
had not come to the old man because he had not 
sought her. Satisfied with wealth, he got no more. 
Now he searched the wide world for a touch from the 
hand of Love, ft He turned away, and as he plodded 
on, I heard him say : "Not here, not here." 



HELL ! I don't want to be "educated." Just a 
friend or two who will love me for what I am. 



12 



THE HEART OF THINGS 



FOLLOWING NATURE'S LEAD 

•'I had rather he a kitten, and cry mew, 
Than one of these same meter hallad-mongers." — Shakespeare. 

NATURE always follows the line of least resist- 
ance. Herein lies the secret of all success. The 
man who wants to succeed in any calling of life would 
be very foolish if he made himself obnoxious to all he 
came in contact with. He would meet with resist- 
ance at once, and in doing so would challenge Nature 
to enter the arena against him. And when a man 
does that, he may as well give up, for Nature will not 
be antagonized : and she never loses a contest. Get on 
the side of Nature and more than half the fight is won. 
Study with what ease she does things. How care- 
fully it all is planned, and how quietly and surely 
every plan is carried out. 

When a person desires to overcome some evil habit, or 
to get away from a debilitating influence, if he is wise, 
he will not place himself where the temptation will get 
hold of him. He will adopt the rational way, and 
withdraw to a place where temptation is less power- 
ful. He will seek the line of least resistance. Or he 
will overcome temptation by giving way to it. 
In seeking the best for himself and other, the wise 
man will do as Nature does. He will not strive 
where the point of resistance is greatest, but will find 
the weaker point and camp there. If he be weak, 
he will again follow the example of Nature, and 

13 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

let the good things come to him, instead of sacrificing 
his life by striving against the more powerful elements 
for them. 

If a man desires the greatest success, he will not seek 
the companionship of the unsuccessful, but will get in 
touch with the successful. In so doing, he will work 
in harmony with Nature, and thereby find what he 
most needs. 

It used to be the popular belief that "competition is 
the life of trade," and every man thought his only 
chance of success rested in his ability to cope with and 
overcome his neighbor, fl We are just closing a very 
competitive period in the world's history — perhaps the 
greatest known. "As individuals we stand, united we 
fall," has been the watchword. But a period of greater 
success is dawning — the period of co-operation. The 
great trusts have shown what can be done in the com- 
mercial world. ff Greater things are yet to be de- 
veloped in the social world. 

The power of thought is so mighty when properly 
understood and applied, that men are uniting as never 
before in a fraternal way in their efforts to better their 
own condition and the condition of humanity, fl Long, 
long ago, when the Man of Nazareth attempted to 
point the Jewish church away from its attitude 
of holiness to one of Simple Truth and Brotherly 
Love, it turned upon him and he was crucified for his 
pains. Since those days the church has changed some 
for the better, because the people have grown more 
enlightened, but even yet, it is far away from the 
Simple Life. And while it remains away the demand 

14 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

for co-operation among men will continue to grow, and 
there will be the harmonizing of thought and action 
for man's soul betterment outside of what we know as 
religious lines. Men will draw closer together, and 
will work out their own salvation and the salvation 
of the world, in a natural way. 

The church has failed to accomplish its prime object 
because it would approach man at the point of great- 
est resistance. The man Jesus pointed out this de- 
fect, and was accusedof eating with publicans and sin- 
ners; breaking the laws of the Sabbath; blasphemy, 
and all manner of heresy. But, what Christ attempted 
to show the church was this : that there is a better way 
to approach a man than to say to him : "Here, sir, you 
are damned : if you would be saved, you must believe 
so-and-so." He saw the man from within and knew he 
was not so black as orthodoxy painted him, and he 
went to that man on the common footing of Brotherly 
Love and showed him wherein custom and vice had 
led him wrong. That was a long time ago, but it was 
only yesterday that man realized the purpose of his 
mission. 

Our fraternal societies and our Success clubs are doing 
their work in a similar way. They teach men co- 
operation in thought and action, and point them to 
the highest ideals of Harmony and Health, Happi- 
ness and Love. 

"Divided we stand ; united we fall" was the old motto. 
"United we stand; divided we fall" is the new. And 
so says Nature. 



15 



SOUL UNFOLDMENT 

"Man makes a death, which Nature never 
made." — Edward Young. 



V/, 



/yS HAT is there back of this physical 
'-w- -rn death that causes men to so fear it? 
Death, when understood, is the most 
natural thing in the universe — quite 
as natural as life itself, and as nec- 
essary, if there is to be growth. In 
our present state of mind and body, 
the soul is so bound to a narrow, 
misshapen life that, at best, it can- 
not reach far beyond the confines of 
Avarice, against the walls of which 
it beats its wings like an imprisoned 
eagle, which, looking high unto the 
scraggy peaks, longs to soar above 
them, amid the clouds. 
Some day, when the sting of Death 
is drawn, and all religious societies 
become more concerned about the 
now than the afterwhile, the world 
will forget all about what might be 
on the other side, and when the time 
comes for man to make the dip into 
the unknown, he will think as little 
about it as he does of changing his 
clothing. And what is now an oc- 
casion for weeping, will have been 
changed into one of laughing. As 
Omar puts it: 
16 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside 
And, naked on the Air of Heaven ride; 

Were it not a shame— were it not a shame for him 
In this clay carcase crippled to abide? 

Where does man get his present conception of Death? 
It is so hateful, and so unworthy the highest type of 
animal! The fowls of the air; the beasts of the field 
and those inhabiting the ocean deep, have no such 
fear of Nature's most necessary function. Only man 
fears it, and he does not fear the thing itself so much 
as what he has taught himself to believe shall be his 
experience after death. Conscious of a life beyond 
the tomb — knowing that Death does not end all — 
he feels his own unfitness for the place or condition 
which centuries of false teaching has shapened in his 
imagination, fl He has trained his mind to look upon 
heaven and hell as an after state, neither of which he 
is quite sure of. He has built Heaven so high that, 
knowing his own failings and weaknesses, and con- 
scious of his breaches of the moral laws with which 
tradition has surrounded him, he fears to meet the 
God he has made for himself, in his own image, and 
draws away from the unknowable in fear and trem- 
bling. 

All this is natural enough for man, since from the be- 
ginning he has been taught that he was born fore- 
ordained to be damned, but it is not the mental con- 
dition of Nature. 

Before man had any knowledge of good and evil, he 
was as indifferent to his future state as any other ani- 
mal, and therefore was not pestered with any ques- 
tion about the whence and whither and why of it all. 
But as soon as he partook of the fruit that made him 

17 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

like the Being in whose image he was made, he felt 
his unworthiness and tried to hide himself. He has 
been doing so ever since. 

The "lower animal" — the dog, for instance— does not 
have any fear of death, because he has no knowledge 
of right and wrong. To him death means — we do not 
know. But how much better for him that he has not 
set laws for himself, — or allowed other dogs to do it, — 
that are unnatural for him to follow. The dog lives 
his life as a dog of his breed should, and when death 
comes he takes it as naturally as he would a bone 
from his master's hand. 

I do not know. Man may have a higher nature than 
the dog. But, if he has, why does he live his life so 
unnaturally that he is ever on bad terms with Nature, 
and unworthy of the best the Universe has to bestow 
on him? Why wasn't he endowed with qualities that 
would enable him to live his life as true to Nature as 
the dog, or the cat, or the bird, or the beast, or the 
plant lives his? Is it possible that the highest Ex- 
pression of Nature in animal form is more imperfect 
than the lowest Expression of Nature? Is it possible? 
Or is it just man's misconception of things? Is it not 
just possible that man, in his hankering after knowl- 
edge, has sought to build about himself restraints that 
Nature and Nature's God never intended him to have? 
And isn't it just possible, too, that, should these re- 
straints be torn away and cast aside, and man return 
to the natural God-animal that he is, there would be no 
thought of right and wrong, but all his actions and 

18 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

thoughts would be in absolute harmony with Nature, 
and therefore with the Being we call God? 
Why expect more of man than he is capable of ren- 
dering? Does it seem reasonable for an All- Wise 
Being to make something after his own image and 
not endow it with sense enough to know what it ought 
to do? To say it were so, is to deny the wisdom of 
the Master. And to go still farther and declare that 
after the All Wise created the man after His Own 
Image, and, knowing him to be without knowledge 
and reason, He left him at the mercy of the evil one, 
and, then, because the man gave way to the wiles of 
the evil one, to say that God turned upon him and 
damned him, and all that came after him, is the most 
unreasonable proposition human or divine mind could 
imagine. 

No human father could conceive such a diabolical 
plan. When a son is born endowed with the parents' 
evil propensities and passions, this fact is taken in 
palliation of any offense he might commit. Cruel — 
cruel, indeed — would be that father who would damn 
the son or daughter of his loins for expressing the 
natural bent of his or her Nature Self, fl And to allow 
ourselves to be carried away by the mythical belief 
that God — All Wise — All Powerful — All Loving — did 
make man in His own image and bestow upon him 
all knowledge but the knowledge of good and evil, and 
then did set before him the tree of knowledge and 
demand him to restrain from eating of its fruit on the 
penalty of knowing right from wrong — to believe that 
God did this, I say, and, too, before the man Adam 

19 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

knew right from wrong, is the most preposterous 
proposition with which the human mind ever had to 
deal. It is inconceivable how a Being All Wise could 
expect a being without knowledge of right and wrong 
to follow the dictates of any other passion than that 
of Desire. And it is hideous to teach that this All- 
Wise Being did damn the Being who knew not what 
was wrong until he had committed it; and not only 
this being, Adam, but all beings made like him from 
the dawn of creation until its night. 
The teaching, I say, is hideous. And yet, upon this 
teaching hinges the truth or falsity of Society's posi- 
tion with regard to man's destiny. 
fl It is not the writer's desire to bring into question 
beliefs that have stood for so much that has been dear 
to the heart of humanity all the ages that are past, 
but he feels that all of man's fear of death is based 
upon this remarkable story of man's downfall, and 
back of it, and in it, and from it, springs the great 
cause of man's inhuman treatment of the spirit within 
him called God, and his unnatural expression of Life 
as it flows through him. 

Take away this abominable, unnatural, inhuman be- 
lief about God and man and the devil, and the relation 
of these three in the crime of man's downfall, and you 
take away all fear, and place an entirely different com- 
plexion on man, his privileges and his responsibilities. 
Instead of making him a cringing criminal unworthy 
the love of his God, you make him a creation of the 
Power Divine, made in God's image, and placed on 
earth as His representative, fit to do His will and 

20 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

made for that purpose. You make him feel, not only 
his privilege, but also his responsibility, and he will 
not think of doing what is contrary to the will of Na- 
ture and Nature's God. On the other hand ; teach him 
that he is here, conceived in sin, damned before he 
knows what life is, and impress upon him — day after 
day, week after week, year after year, century upon 
century,^that he is a weakling — prone to do evil — sin- 
ful and mean ; that all his fathers before him were no 
better than he — all damned before birth, — and what 
kind of manhood flowers? 

"But," I hear you say, "you take out of life God's 
plan of salvation. You would do away with the need 
of a Savior." Well, what of it? But I do not. I 
would acknowledge, if you please, the supremacy of 
Christ as the Son of God. I believe He is. And as a 
Savior? Yes. The life He spent upon earth, judging 
from what we know of it, made Him a Savior — just as 
the life of any man who lives so Nature can speak and 
act through him makes him a savior to others. 
When we forget that we are we, and feel that the I, — 
the ego, — the It-All of the universe (call it God, Na- 
ture, Spirit, what you will), when we feel that It is 
ourselves, and that this body — this thing we call man — 
is only the instrument through which Life flows — then 
do we realize what was meant by Christ's words : "My 
Father and I are one — He in me — I in you." 
|f"But man is a free agent," you say. Yes, he is. Free 
to accept defeat and condemnation by closing his life 
to the inflow and outflow of humanity's love, thus re- 
tarding the natural unfoldment of Nature through 

21 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

him ; or free to accept all, and allow himself to be made 
a motor through which life is generated and made to 
serve the It-All of the universe, which ever is striving 
for more perfect expression, whether through man or 
beast, fowl, fish or plant life. 

1f My God is a Being of Truth and Love. He is Truth 
and Love. My God is not a Being of jealousy and 
revenge. I grow into my God, as I allow Nature ex- 
pression through me ; I do not grow from him. To be 
like my God, I am my God: i. e., my God is in me. 
And when my God is in me, I will not dishonor him 
by whining about my weaknesses. 
|f My mind recalls the impressions I had, when, a 
straight-haired lad of seven years, I sat by mother's 
side in the old home church, and, parrot-like, repeated 
the service of an established religious society. Sun- 
day after Sunday, I watched others come and go, and 
heard them recite by rote as I did, the stereotyped ex- 
pressions, "have mercy upon us, miserable sinners," 
"spare us, Good Lord," "Good Lord, deliver us," etc., 
and my boy's heart recoiled at the thought that God 
was such a Being as would delight to have his chil- 
dren come before him with such a shameful wail upon 
their lips. I knew many kind and loving people in 
those congregations, and I did not believe they were 
poor miserable sinners. In fact, I knew they were 
not. And the logic of my boyish mind would not per- 
mit me to think that they themselves believed they 
were so bad as their wail of woe made it appear. 
I did not know then the names of the men who pre- 
pared that bemeaning service of supplication. Nor do 

22 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

I care now. This is the truth that came to me then, 
and has grown upon me since: No man or body of 
men can frame words for me that will express my love 
for the God of Nature; and no man or body of men 
can prepare a prayer that will tell my heart's wish for 
my fellows or express my heart's praise of its fulness 
of the Divine in all. Nor could any man, or body of 
men, prepare a stock letter that would convey to God 
my confession of sin — if such were necessary. 
ff I cannot imagine a Supreme Being so hideous as to 
take pleasure out of having me run to Him every Sun- 
day and mumble in his ear a stereotyped indictment 
against myself, written by men, perhaps two or three 
hundred years before I was born. One tiny thought 
of love from my heart to His is worth all the buzzy- 
wuzzy prayers, sung do-see-do, that ever clogged the 
flow of Nature's love and repressed the expression of 
the Divine in me. 

The writer is quite sure that Man's Divinity should 
make more of him than a talking machine, fl I was 
reading the other day the story of a young, sweet 
singer, who sang into a phonograph, and a few weeks 
later sickness robbed Life of a vessel of expression 
through her here. At the grave, while her body was 
being lowered into the earth, her voice was heard from 
the talking machine singing, "Nearer, My God, to 
Thee." And I thought it was all very nice, fl There 
is something Divine in the work of men and women 
who find themselves before death robs Nature of ex- 
pression through them here. For then they leave the 
world something it did not have before — their indi- 

23 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

viduality. Ofttimes, centuries after their bodies are 
broken and their faces forgotten, the world listens to 
words expressing that individuality, though it refused 
to hear them when Life animated the mortal machine. 
To find himself, man must search. He must refuse 
to be content to accept what is. flThe thought that 
wiggled its way into me and became part of my life 
when a boy, as I heard the same cry of guilt and 
shame repeated week after week, was this: If so 
much has been done that ought not to have been done, 
and so much left undone that ought to have been done, 
why don't you good people do what you ought to do, 
and leave undone what you ought not do? My in- 
quiries then and since have elicited no answer. 
I know a lot of good people who still continue to say 
what they used to say when I was a boy, and yet I am 
sure they do not believe what they have been telling 
God all these years ; and if anybody else were to say of 
them what they have said of themselves they would 
complain mightily — and I would not blame them. 
All this is written in simple love, and with no desire 
to cast a ray of doubt or cynicism upon the estab- 
lished order of things. However, men will think. 
And if we take down the bars and let the light into 
the mind, Nature shows us many things we did not 
know before. It is a psychological fact, that man will 
be what he thinks he is. Let him repeat the thought 
as the days go by that he is miserable, sinful and 
worthy only to be damned, and he will be damned, be- 
cause he ought to be. As one has expressed it : "He 
will be hypnotized by his own thoughts," and what, 

24 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

by repeated suggestion, he has been taught to think 
he is, he will be. A deadening of soul growth will be 
the result, fl And while we are speaking on the ques- 
tion of Soul Growth, let me say what you already 
know. 

fl "Soul Growth" is generally understood to mean 
something apart from man's daily routine. It has a 
churchy sound, and man associates it somewhat un- 
consciously with his Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes. 
Never did he make a greater mistake. In days of old, 
when knights were bold— or they weren't — the priests 
claimed to hold the fate of the souls of men in their 
hands. Some believe so yet. With them I have no 
quarrel. If an individual is so blind to his privileges 
as to place in the hands of another the care of his 
Soul (Life) it is for him to obey the one to whom he 
enslaves himself. 

But let us take away from "Soul Growth" all thought 
of priest-craft, churchism and sacrifice, fl Place man in 
the light of what he is : A God in the chrysalis. "My 
Father and I are one: He in me; I in you." There 
is no mistaking the meaning of these words. They 
are simple and direct. Where in them do we find the 
thought of the priest intruded? If, then, man is God 
in the chrysalis, there must be an unfoldment of the 
soul if there is to be Soul Growth. The word unfold- 
ment conveys the right idea. It means continuous 
action — perpetual unfolding — a gradual, steady un- 
doing. Like the rose bud, we retain Life as we unfold 
it, for in the unfolding we express the Universal Life 
that flows through us. If the bud does not unfold it 

25 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

never becomes the rose, and all of Nature (and what 
is Nature is God) is robbed thereby of so much Life 
Expression, fl Man's soul is like the rose. Ordinarily 
it buds. But how often it dies only a soulbud. And 
because it is only a soulbud, Nature is deprived of so 
much Life Expression, and this heaven of ours is 
thereby made the meaner. 

fl The Soul's unfoldment comes as all things of Nature 
come. Man is a reasoning being, and must unfold in 
a reasonable way. First, then, he must recognize that 
he is a Soul — that through him Nature is expressing 
herself in a different way than she ever expressed her- 
self before, or can express herself through another, 
and yet in a perfectly natural way. To do this she 
must not be hampered by man in his false notions 
about Goodness. Custom and the priest have com- 
bined to so mystify man about his moral downfall that 
his whole life is spent in whining about his unworthi- 
ness. As a result he does not unfold. He never gets 
beyond a soulbud condition. Let him live the Life 
of Love, day by day, and Nature will not ask more. 
Soul unfoldment will come as naturally as the sunshine 
makes the rosebud unfold into the rose. 
Perhaps I am wrong. But may not we treat our souls 
with the same consideration that we do our stomachs, 
for after all is said, one is not far separated from the 
other. Feed the stomach the proper nourishment; 
give it work, and rest, and quiet, when it needs it, and 
it never will cause any uneasiness. You will not 
know you have a stomach but for the pleasure it 
brings you. 

26 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

If The rose does not stop to question the fragrance of 
its perfume. Neither does the skunk cabbage. Each 
seeks to express Nature— one as faithfully as the 
other. 

\\ When we speak about Soul Growth the listener or 
reader usually falls at once into the mistake of be- 
lieving that it has reference to the individual's welfare 
in the after life. Soul Growth to the writer means 
much more than this. While it does have bearing 
upon the individual's future state as well as his pres- 
ent, its chief bearing is upon what we know as Life, 
whether here or there. And by Life, I mean Uni- 
versal Life — not Individual Life. There is that long- 
ing in you and me which prompts us to do and dare 
things that bring us much unpleasantness, and some- 
times remorse. We do not know why we do it, and 
while we labor under the load of remorse we fain 
would retrace our steps if it were possible. But slowly 
the remorse wears off, and we find as we emerge from 
the shadow that Life is more abundantly ours than 
before we passed into the shadow, fl We developed in 
the shadow what we could not have developed in the 
bright sunshine, and we find that Nature flows into us 
and through us more freely now than before, fl For 
days and perhaps weeks after one of these shadow 
spells, we feel free as the birds of the air, and can 
see how good life is. We see back of the cloud — 
back of the action that brought remorse — back — back 
of the thing that brought us happiness before, and it 
seems so commonplace — so insignificant — that we 
wonder we ever could have taken pleasure out of it. 

27 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Not until then do we realize that we have grown — 
not till then do we see how necessary the cloud was. 
Thus we learn by easy stages that this Individual Life 
is only an atom in the Universal Life, and that as we 
pass through experience after experience we grow into 
a being which becomes ever more capable of giving 
expression to the Life that Is — the Life Universal. 
Could man realize more perfectly the limitlessness ot 
Life, and feel the indestructibility of it — could he feel 
the immensity of his capacity to give expression to it, 
— if he could but live above his conception of the Indi- 
vidual Life — then the beauty of it all, and the gran- 
deur, would blind him to the incongruities of what we 
are taught to look upon as human existence. 
We speak of Soul, and Life, and Spirit, as if we knew 
these things to be individual Somethings distinct and 
apart from each other — and then we say that in this 
body of matter these Somethings dwell. We speak of 
"the Spirit of Man," "the Soul of Man," "the Life of 
Man," as if we believed man consisted of this poor 
vessel we dress up and give a distinguishing name — 
as if man were something superior to and distinct 
from all other forms of Life. And then, as a natural 
sequence we indulge the thought that this superior 
being called man is removed from any accountability 
to any other form of life. He can kill the "lower ani- 
mals" with impunity, destroy at pleasure, and is ac- 
countable to no one for thus expressing the brute in 
him. 

This is the natural outcome of the unnatural concep- 
tion we have of Life. We are prone to individualize 

28 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

things. We speak of the animal, the tree, the plant, 
the bird, man, God, devil, priest, saint and sinner, as 
if each were a distinct life and had no relation to the 
Life that Is — the Universal Life. We speak of Nature 
and of God — of natural things and spiritual things — as 
if the Being called God had no relation to Nature and 
was, in fact, opposed to it. Thus we build up in the 
Life of the Universe, — of which the life of man is only 
one form of expression, — a life of antagonism, in which 
we teach the doctrine of "every man for himself and 
the devil take the hindmost." 

Such a teaching, which man stubbornly holds to, ap- 
peals to the negative side of him. He is taught to ex- 
press as little as possible of Nature Life, and so, be- 
cause he expresses little — gives little — he gets little — 
does not grow. Growth — Soul Growth, like all other 
forms of growth, is experienced by man just in propor- 
tion to his capacity to give expression to Life as it 
comes to him. 

jf If we cultivate the selfish temperament we shall not 
desire to give any more of Life than we have to; and 
Nature will not thrust upon us a task we do not care 
to do, but will find another vessel through which to 
give Life. 

|f All men have a desire to live abundantly. There is 
a sort of mechanical existence that we call life, which 
is most attractive to man, but which is so artificial 
and baubleized that Nature finds no expression 
through it. In such a life we find no Soul Growth, be- 
cause the Soul of Nature has been crowded out. 
ft Soul-Growth is man's natural unfoldment into God. 

29 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

When we can go into the forest and feel the warm 
heartbeat of the It-All in the trees in response to the 
heartbeats of the It- All in us; when we can commune 
with the It-All, as It speaks through the flower, the 
bird, the beast, the rolling heavens, the mourning seas, 
the pastoral landscape, the scraggy peaks and the rum- 
ble of the city's marts — when we can feel with It, and 
think with It, and know that we are part of It, then 
we know the possibilities of man and learn what Life 
is, for then we die to live — the individual man is lost 
in the Expression of the Whole. 

We are man-shaped atoms through which the Uni- 
verse works; we are the bowls from which is poured 
the Spirit of the Eternal God. 



/ 



T^TEVER try to stop an ambitious man. In the first 
J ^1 place, you cannot do it ; that's the work of the 
Omnipotent. In the second place, it will not do you 
nor him any good if you succeed. Stop him today, 
and tomorrow he will break out in a new place. God 
bless him; that's what we like about him. He never 
is stilled. Forge ahead he will! If you find his pace 
too fast for you, better drop out than be a drag. Give 
him rein. If he is right he will succeed whether or 
no ; if he is not right, the quickest way to stop him is 
to let him stop himself. 

30 



v/ 



SIMPLICITY OF NATURE 

"We are all children of the kingdom of 
God! and it doth not yet appear what we 
shall he." — Huhhard. 



rf& 



• 



1 






WARM summer wind blows toward 
me over the sweet-smelling clover 
field. With each breath I see visions 
of childhood days, when life was 
all so happy because it was so sim- 
ple. Yonder in the corner of the old 
rail fence I see frisky, rollicking 
Maud, and around her Tommy, Dick 
and Harry; Alice, Annie and Kate. 
Their sunburnt faces are hid in the 
clover. I cannot see the glow of 
their ruddy cheeks, but their child- 
like prattle and merry laugh tells 
me so many things about Goodness 
that I did not know before. I see 
the tops of their flaxen heads just 
even with the red clover balls, some 
of them sun-bonneted, and some 
glistening golden in the sunlight. 
Now and then one will bob up and 
down, so joyous, and careless, and 
gay. How indifferent they are to 
life — so happy in each other's love. 
They are healthy, rollicking boys 
and girls; full of what Nature put 
into them — no better, no worse 
than any other children. They do 
not know they have a stomach until 
3i 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

they abuse it — do not know what Goodness is until 
they misuse it — content and happy — glad to be just 
what they are because their minds have not been 
warped into believing that there is something better 
for them in the meadow beyond. 
Would I be a child again? No; not in pinafore. But 
this I would be — now and always — a child in spirit. 
I know we are not any older than we feel. I would 
make all this world a clover field : red-topped, shower- 
bedewed, and kissed by the glowing sun. In my 
corner of it, I would be a child forever, and with those 
I love about me I would be what God by nature made 
me — no better, no worse, than you, my brother. And 
as I became childlike I would become Christlike. Not 
a whining, whimpering baby would I be, continually 
bemoaning my sinfulness. My stomach would not 
ache because I would not eat green apples. My soul 
would not cry out in anguish, because it would not 
be in anguish. I would be a child in spirit. And, do 
you know, sister; children do not know what a pain is 
if they are healthy. Neither do souls, if they are let 
alone, and are healthy. 



SEEKING THE IMPOSSIBLE 

"I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made 
men, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so 
abominahly . ' ' — Hamlet. 

THE old man's head was white with years, and he 
walked with feeble and uncertain step, leaning 
upon a stick. The granddaughter was just closing 

32 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

her teens and soon would step off into the twenties. 
She was graceful as a fawn; lithe and pretty. They 
sauntered along the path crossing the meadow where 
the morning sun tips the green and makes the dew- 
drops sparkle like jewels upon the neck of a Venus 
waiting the coming of Adonis. 

11 "I do so want to be good, Grandpa," she said. "But 
it is almost impossible, sometimes." 
U"Want to be good, did you say, girlie? Ah, no; 
don't 'want to be good.' Be what you are, — that is 
enough — just what you are. Everybody 'wants to be 
good.' The mortal does not live who has not felt with 
you that unsatisfied longing. What does it mean, this 
desire 'to be good?' Perhaps the working of the Di- 
vine in us; perhaps a consciousness that we are not 
living up to our Ideal? I do not know. Somebody 
has said, that if we do not live up to our Ideal, it will 
come down to us. Haven't you, time and again, felt 
a Divine impulse to go forward and upward — to grasp 
the opportunity that would lift you nearer your Ideal? 
And you failed — failed because — because — oh, dear! 
What shall I say? Then will come that longing 'to 
be good.' 

"Listen, daughter; is there any merit in such a long- 
ing when we know it is the result of our own lack of 
will to do the thing? Had we done it, the longing 
would not be in the heart, but we would feel the com- 
fort of having done that which would bring us nearer 
what we ought to be. Having failed, we try to patch 
things up with ourselves — our conscience — and long 
'to be good.' 

33 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

"The fact is, little girl: this 'be good* business is 
worked to tatters. There isn't anything in it. It is 
all a false alarm, arising out of a false belief. When 
we do our duty, we do not think of 'being good.' We 
simply are, and that is all of it." 
And with this May and December walked hand in 
hand out of hearing. 



MOULTING OUR IDEAS 

"Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 
But looks through Nature up to Nature's God." — Pope. 

ALL men seek to know the Truth. The reason 
some men know more of it than others is because 
they are prepared to step farther in advance of "the 
accepted order of things" than others. They seek 
diligently for it, and do not stop even when they run 
in conflict with what has been accepted as Truth by 
their fellows for years, and, perhaps, ages past. 
The man seeking to know the Truth does not stop to 
question what others think of it when he finds it. He 
accepts it, no matter where he finds it, and however 
unorthodox it may appear. It matters little to him 
if others cannot see it as he does. He knows it is 
Truth, and all the powers that be cannot turn him 
from it. Men may laugh and quibble, but the Truth- 
seeker does not mind them. He knows intuitively 
what is sound and what unsound, and, though all the 
known world may flout his testimony, he holds fast 
to what he has discovered, knowing some day others 

34 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

will see it. The men who have done most to 
shake the world have been men who, like Pericles, 
Socrates, Jesus, Paul, John, Darwin and Hubbard, 
have been brave enough to stem the current of popu- 
lar belief, and big enough to state the Truth as they 
saw it, when they saw it, no matter if it required that 
they go contrary to the previous belief of the whole 
world, themselves included. The man who is not 
prepared to relinquish his ideas of yesterday for newer 
ideas today, cannot hope to make head in the way of 
Truth. "Consistency," said Emerson, "is the hobgob- 
lin of little minds," and this is never more strikingly 
exemplified than in the matter of ideas. The small 
man is he who refuses to accept new ideas because 
they conflict with those of yesterday. The smallest 
man is he, who, refusing to accept today's ideas, con- 
demns and damns the man who does. It may be true, 
it no doubt is, that the man who refuses to accept 
today's ideas is honest in his effort to be consistent. 
But no man because he is honest, or thinks he is, can 
claim the right to bind another down to his ideas of 
Truth. What I know of Truth today may not be — 
will not be — all that I shall know of Truth tomorrow 
— if I am advancing. Each day I must become better 
acquainted with Truth than I was the day before. If 
I do not my ideas will become stale, and bigotry, like 
gangrene, will eat into my soul. 

Over in Canada they have a colony of Dukhobors. As 
members of society they are a quiet, sober and hard- 
working people. They are the offshoot of a Russian 
religious sect founded in Kharkov about 1750-75. The 

35 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

rapid growth of the sect brought upon its members 
governmental persecution as early as 1797 to 1800. 
Then the government thought better of the Dukho- 
bortsi and settled them upon a tract of fertile land on 
the banks of the river Molochnaya in Taurida. Re- 
lieved from official annoyances the colony soon ex- 
perienced a period of thrift and prosperity. Then 
again, about 1819, the government resumed hostile 
measures, the result of a policy of the church to bring 
all religious elements of the Russian empire into con- 
formity with Greek Catholicism. So severe were the 
measures, and so cruel the treatment of these honest 
people by the Russian church, that early in the nine- 
ties, if you remember, the attention of the outside 
world was attracted to them, and after long petition- 
ing many thousands were allowed to leave for Cyprees 
and Canada. 

The religious views of these people are simple in the 
extreme, and are handed down by oral tradition. 
Christ was only a man. of superior godlike intellect, 
and his soul has migrated into many mortals. All peo- 
ple are equal, and, being children of God, do what is 
right; hence there is no need of rulers. They do not 
visit churches, considering that wherever two or three 
persons endowed with intellect, even if Jews or Mo- 
hammedans, gather for worship, there is a church. 
They accept the Ten Commandments, and of the 
Bible "only the useful portions," interpreting the rest 
allegorically. They have no icons, confessions or 
ceremonies at marriages, which they contract by the 
heart's inclination only. In private life, wives and 

36 



\ 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

husbands are sisters and brothers; the parents "old 
man" and "old woman." The plenary power of a 
Dukhobor community is vested in the assembly of 
elders, presided over by a bishop. 
My purpose in thus going into detail about the Dukho- 
bors is twofold. First, all men must concede that the 
Dukhobor gets nearer to Nature than the most of 
us, and therefore has much in his religious life that 
is superior to much to be found in the life of any 
modern denominational sect. But, to offset his good 
qualities, the Dukhobor has much in him that is bad. 
It is a way Nature has. When you see a man with 
marked qualities in one direction he will be found 
deficient in another. It has to be this way to preserve 
a balance, ft The creed of the Dukhobor teaches that 
it is sinful to eat any kind of animal substance, and 
they strictly adhere to that belief by refusing to use 
anything that has come in contact with any animal. 
When the Canadian government brought that colony 
of Dukhobors from Russia, each head of a Dukhobor 
family was given 160 acres of land; houses were built 
for them and their farms stocked with horses, cows 
and poultry. Farming implements were given them, 
and a number of men were employed to show them 
how to work. Of course, no government could be ex- 
pected to show as much consideration for the poor 
and hungry of its own native-born. In matters of 
charity we often rob our own of the needful to give 
to those infinitely better off if let alone, fl And so the 
Canadian government refused assistance to its own 
native-born, and spent several hundred thousand dol- 

37 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

lars for the Dukhobor. This, of course, is nothing 
against the Dukhobor. What I am getting at is this: 
While the Dukhobor is intensely religious, and po- 
litically he is theocratic, he is also stubbornly foolish 
and distressingly lazy. His bishop's word is his law. 
But he won't work if he can get the Lord to keep him 
from hunger without it. Instead of staying home and 
tending to his knitting, he goes a-swarming periodic- 
ally in search of the Christ. When he is induced to 
work he hitches his wife to the plow along with the 
oxen and makes her hold up her end with the ox. 
Perhaps the best we can say of him is that he is re- 
ligious. 

It is this parallel that we are arriving at : The Dukho- 
bor's soul is bound up in his bishop! The Soul of 
the man who dukhobors life, is bound up in the world's 
ideas of yesterday. While each may be honest, he is 
not wise. No man can have wisdom who limits his 
thoughts to those of others, and confines his ideas to 
those of yesterday. History is full of proof. Where 
such a condition exists, Truth is buried beneath the 
gangrene of bigotry. Nations and men are made great 
by mothers and wives of thoughtfulness and love. 
Hitch a woman to a plow with the ox and we have a 
priest-ridden people. And a priest-ridden people 
never has stood ace high in either intelligence or 
morals. Now, what is a priest-ridden people? I'll 
tell you what: A priest-ridden people is a people 
which never has risen above its ideas of yesterday. 



38 



THE MYSTERY Or MAN 



'Man never is, but always to be blest." — Pope. 



c rT 



u 



j^ 



\a 



HE remarkable thing about it is that 
man will persist in building up an 
unfathomable mystery about him- 
self, and his future, and then pay 
another man to give him peace of 
mind by offering a solution that does 
not solve. It seems to be a weak- 
ness of human nature that impels 
men to take the way that appears 
most mysterious to accomplish the 
ordinary. In his efforts to discover 
some new way to perform life's du- 
ties, man has formulated a thousand 
and one creeds and beliefs, each of 
which adds more mystery to the 
things he desires light upon. 
When the priests heard Christ's 
simple doctrine of Love and Service 
he was swept away in a whirlwind 
of abuse. Up to the time of his com- 
ing "sacrifice" was the keynote of 
the established church, and the word 
was set to the jingle of silver and 
gold. Then came the teaching that 
service is more acceptable than sac- 
rifice, and forthwith the priest saw 
his doom. One of two things had to 
happen : The holy synod had to put 
39 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Christ out of existence or get out of existence itself. 
Naturally the church chose its priestly privilege and 
sacrificed Christ, that it might live in his name. 
If Man is a peculiar animal, ff There is just one thing 
more strange, and that is his mate, woman. 
"You gaze at a star for two motives, because it is 
luminous and because it is impenetrable. You have 
by your side a sweeter radiance and greater mystery 
— woman," said Hugo. 

In his business life man is as reasonable and sensible 
as can be, but in matters affecting soul growth — 
really the higher and better part of his nature — he is 
most unreasonable. Go to the ordinary business man 
with a proposition affecting his business and he will 
take it up and weigh it carefully. If you can show 
him that it means greater success and greater oppor- 
tunity for him, he will put his money into it and set 
the machinery in motion. He will make it operative 
as soon as possible, and keep it busy. Nor will he 
delegate to another the power to dictate the proposi- 
tion. In all his methods he uses simple, honest, logical 
reason — and energy, fl Contrast this with his method 
of advancing his Soul Growth. Indeed, most of us 
have no method. No thought is taken of developing 
the divine in us, and to the priest is delegated the 
power to act for us. Our business with the Divine is 
done by proxy, if at all. fl As well say that I may send 
you to school to study mathematics for me, or to 
the gymnasium to develop my muscular power, or to 
the table and to bed to do my eating and sleeping. 
When we delegate to another that which we alone can 

40 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

do, we deprive ourselves of the only means by which 
we may assist our growth, fl We evolve into better 
men and women by doing well the common things 
of life. 

When we exercise the physical and digestive ap- 
paratus, and allow the mental or the spiritual to stand 
still, we become one-sided, unsymmetrical beings, un- 
fit for advancement, fl This is the condition of society 
today. It shows abnormal development along selfish 
lines. The church, moving with the crowd, has taken 
on the spirit of the day. It will evolve into something 
better when the people do. It never leads the way. 
All down the ages the way to progress has been 
opened by men who were ostracised by the church, and 
condemned by the priest. It was so when Jesus, the 
man Christ came. It was his simplicity and humility 
that upset the rutified formality so perniciously ad- 
hered to by the priests. He pointed to the absurdity 
of flowing gowns, long prayers, majestic church build- 
ings, and a superfluity of altars of sacrifice. All of 
these things were as nothing to him if from the heart 
of man there did not flow the simple love that 
made the life radiate the Goodness of God. History 
is full of the names of men who, growing tired of the 
"religious" moaning for the "lost and sinful world," 
stood up boldly and declared the divine right of man 
to be as God. The priest never has been pleased to 
accept this teaching. He believes, or pretends to be- 
lieve, that man is made good — absolved from sin — by 
his priestly prayers. As if Nature were going to 
teach a man goodness without compelling him to 

4i 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

practice it! It is an absurd thought to pretend that 
we are damned until some man in a flowing gown 
condescends to absolve us and put within us good for 
evil. 

Would to God men would stop long enough in their 
mad creed worship to get a right good hold upon 
themselves. Think, you! Are we to deny the God 
of the Universe expression through us for the sake of 
adhering to a narrow creed that depicts us as miser- 
able sinners? Are we to blind ourselves to the living 
Spirit of Goodness within us that we might adhere to 
a doctrine of self-abasement? Are we to continue to 
refuse to receive that which by nature we are heirs 
to, simply to make room for and foster an organiza- 
tion of blind guides? 

I like the writings of that grand old Apostle, Paul. 
When he tells us that the kingdom of heaven is within 
us, he does not talk in riddles. Custom has a way of 
rolling the eyes upward when the word heaven is 
mentioned, and the priest points away off yonder into 
space. But men of all ages big enough to stand true 
to their convictions, and bold enough to give expres- 
sion to the Alpha and Omega in them — call it Nature, 
Truth, or what you will — have at all times declared 
with the Apostle, "the kingdom of heaven is within 
you." Absurd, indeed, is the idea that heaven is a 
place where there will not be any useful work per- 
formed, fl In our present state of development — and 
we are as yet but poor expressions of Nature — we 
know how essential to our evolution into more perfect 
vessels is honest, useful labor. Let a man be kept 

42 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

busy in a useful calling and he grows steadily into 
something better ; but give him nothing to do, and he 
at once begins to drift into decay. 
When we see a man spend millions on his home, pro- 
viding for himself luxuries that create a demand for 
laziness that he may enjoy them, we feel the pity of 
it, and the words uttered so long ago ring in our ears, 
"Fool, this night thy soul shall be demanded of thee." 
We know that such a life can lead only to oblivion — 
spiritual forgetfulness — in which there can be no Soul 
Growth; and we know that death of soul must fol- 
low. The strenuous life — the life that accomplishes 
something — is the life we point to with pride. Where 
is the honest man who does not hate a lazy man? 
ft And yet, the heaven these false prophets point us 
to is to provide us a place of rest, where we can sit 
and just sing for God's sake. 

If the streets of the far away heaven are paved with 
gold, and the gates studded with pearls, then gold 
and pearls are as common there as concrete and cob- 
ble stones are here. And one is no more serviceable 
than the other, ft Of course, we know this is all a 
fairy tale, told as we sometimes hear stories told to 
children today, to make them be good — a promise, 
that if we don't do what we want to now we may, 
after a while, do as we please. The tendency of it 
all, while it may cause us to sacrifice things here in 
the hope of having something better than our neigh- 
bor there, the tendency of it all is to cause us to look 
away from ourselves for what we should find within, 

43 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and to forget the real of life in blindly yearning for 
something that does not exist outside of story lore. 
How much better it would be to turn our gaze from 
the heaven far away, and center it upon the heaven 
within the human soul. What nonsense to carry men 
away into realms of thought they can know nothing 
about, and blind them to their own Godlikeness by 
telling them that God is somewhere outside of them- 
selves ! 



££\ HAT is this passion we call jealousy? The babe 
^^4> Ignorance, nursed in the lap of Lust, fl None 
but a fool would allow it to grow in the heart. It 
unfits a man for business — for society — for anything 
but the felon's cell or the padded chamber of a lunatic 
asylum. It burns out the heart and consumes reason. 
What consummate idiocy to attempt to pardon, con- 
done, excuse this consuming passion! Someone has 
gone so far even to say that where there is no 
jealousy there is no love. The proof of the plum duff 
is in the eating: if you want to try it, get jealous, 
and you will find that love and jealousy cannot live 
in the same heart. I know: they do say that God is 
a jealous God, but I would as soon believe that God 
had a soul of clabber, a heart of green cheese and a 
head of sour dough. 

44 



NOT HOWMUCHBUT HOW WELL 

"To m© the meanest flower that hlows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

— Wordsworth. 



JJ 



^ ga" 



O your thoughts "knock the persim- 
mons ?" In all of life's duties and 
privileges ; in every phase and posi- 
tion and condition of society, man 
must answer for what he thinks as 
well as for what he does. No man 
can go back of his thoughts. He 
may lay the blame for his misdeeds 
upon another, and complain that 
environment and temptation forced 
him to do this, or to leave undone 
that, but his thoughts are his own 
children and it is for him to say 
what those thoughts shall be. It 
seems as though the power to think 
is the God in man, for as we de- 
velop the capacity to think we see 
more of good in the world and less 
of evil. And every thought of good, 
passing through the mind, leaves a 
trace upon our character. The more 
we think, the greater will be our 
capacity to think. Like Love, 
Thought grows as we exercise it. 
Our growth in character depends 
upon our growth in thought, not 
thought in a collective sense, but 
each individual thought, separate 
45 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and apart from every other thought: not so much on 
how much we think, as how well. 
The ability to think — to originate ideas — to give a 
personality to one's mental children — is not given at 
birth to one man and withheld from another; it is 
every man's for the taking. But thought is not a 
bastard child : it is the offspring of Concentration and 
Adaptation, born on the hard bed of Isolation. Soli- 
tude is a good berth in which to lay the child. | But 
Solitude does not lead always to good thinking. Once 
I had a friend who lived a solitary life, and he allowed 
his thoughts to pull him into oblivion through the 
door opening into a suicide's grave. He was an 
exemplary young man; way above the average in 
intellect and training: manly in all things but his 
conduct toward himself. But he was not master of 
Inclination. Today was spent in brooding over yes- 
terday's misdoings, instead of using today in develop- 
ing today's blessings and privileges. 
"By their fruits ye shall know them," applies to 
thoughts as well as to actions — secular and spiritual. 
It is not difficult to tell what a man's thoughts are 
when we can look into his eye, or can see his daily 
life. How many times we see men who can think and 
work all around a thing and never touch it? Their 
thoughts don't "knock the persimmons." Just like 
yours and mine, sometimes. 



6 



IVE me health and a tin whistle and you can take 
the gilded palace and the band wagon. 
46 



THE HEART OF THINGS 



EVOLUTION OF THE SAW-FLY. 

"For time will teach thee soon the truth, 
There are r.; toil jz las: y-a^ s zest. ' 

—Long fellow. 

THE best way to learn to do a thing is to keep 
right on doing something. Just as sure as a 
man proves himself faithful in something small, some- 
thing a deal bigger will come up for him to do. 
In childhood we were sent to school and made to 
learn, day by day, the lessons set before us. We did 
not know what it would lead to ; we just surmised 
that we were learning something and so persisted 
week after week to master the studies that were 
given us. 

Year by year we found ourselves more capable of 
doing the things we wanted to do, yet we could not 
tell just how the knowledge came to us. We only 
knew that we were compelled to study the lessons of 
the day — one lesson at a time, and just so many each 
day. It was not hard. It was natural — this process 
of education — always a gradual growth. There was 
never a mighty spurt and then a killing season of in- 
activity. All true education is thus a slow unfoldment. 
Today we see things more clearly than we did yester- 
day. Tomorrow we shall see them more clearly than 
we do today. We grow, step by step, into harmony 
with the Divine in Nature. This is no theory. Men in- 
tuitively accept it as a positive thing — they know that 
all unfoldment must be by easy stages. r We can illus- 
trate this by alluding to the life of the common saw- 

47 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

fly. The female deposits the egg into a pocket in the 
leaf of a tree. By absorbing the plant juices the egg 
enlarges, and finally the young larva comes forth on 
the upper surface of the leaf. Full size is reached in 
less than a month, but in that time the larva casts its 
skin four times, and usually eats its cast skin for its 
first meal after each molt. When full grown it molts a 
fifth time. Up to this stage a slimy, olive-colored liquid 
exudes over the whole body after each molting. Now 
it appears as a light orange-yellow worm, perfectly 
clean and dry, with no slime. In this shape it crawls 
down the tree and penetrates into the earth for half 
an inch or more and there it hibernates in a kind of 
cocoon made by its own saliva until the following 
spring. Up to this time it is known as the pear slug. 
When it emerges from the cocoon in the spring it is 
the saw-fly. Step by step it evolves into what nature 
intended it to be. 

This is a crude illustration, but it shows the natural 
working of the law of evolution. In every condition 
of life man evolves by easy stages into a more perfect 
being. He molts his ideas, and about the first thing 
he does after each molting is to figuratively eat the 
skin that previously clothed him. 
Recognizing this as the principle controlling all nat- 
ural life, it is strange that man should expect anything 
different in the higher order of being. And, yet, in 
matters affecting the higher attributes of his being — 
what we recognize as the spiritual side — man expects 
the divine gift of God to be handed out to him like a 
prize package at a church fair. Men seek to know the 

4 8 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

depths, and breadths and heights of God's mercy and 
wisdom and love, who never have taken the pains to 
learn the alphabet in Spiritual things. Again, we 
sometimes see our splendid orthodox brethren praying 
for God's sake for some rich blessing to fall upon 
themselves or their church. They forget that the rich- 
est blessing that can come to one was given to the 
Man Jesus — and that blessing was the privilege that 
is yours and mine as much as it was His — the privi- 
lege of working for man's salvation and finally to die 
for him. 

We save man not by preaching at him, but by work- 
ing with him the work that is ours today to do. 
Preaching never saved a soul from hell. The most it 
ever did was to waken a soul to its responsibilities. 
A life of quiet, unpretentious, uncomplaining, satisfy- 
ing labor— doing things because they ought to be done 
— not for praise and glory — is a deal more worthy. 
We should ask no blessing from God that we are not 
prepared to work for, then we shall not be disap- 
pointed. 



60D does not need our help so much as His chil- 
dren do; and the saints and martyrs long dead 
do not need our fellowship so much as our fellows do. 
God can take care of Himself: our duty is in doing 
for those about us. 

49 



THAT TRIEND OF MINE 



'Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong." — Longfellow. 



EAR Friend: You explained the text, 
"Unto him who hath," etc., so satis- 
factorily to me that I want to ask 
you to tell us some time about an- 
other thing I have been thinking of. 
I have a sister living with me who 
is a member of an orthodox church 
and in a discussion the other day 
she said no one could be really good 
who had not been to God and 
humbled himself and asked forgive- 
ness for past sins. I said I did not 
think God wanted us to spend our 
time in useless regrets over what 
was past but to start now on the 
way to do our best each day in the 
right direction. And my sister 
quoted the Lord's prayer that we 
both learned to say at our mother's 
knee. And she said that Christ said, 
"When ye pray, say 'Our Father 
who art in heaven,' etc., and when 
she reached the 'forgive us our tres- 
passes as we forgive those who 
trespass against us,' she laid great 
stress upon that. Now I want to 
know just what you think of this, 
and thought perhaps you would 
50 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

write something for us in our Best Magazine that 
would settle the point. She thinks we ought to ac- 
knowledge ourselves to be poor, miserable sinners, 
and falling on our knees acknowledge ourselves to be 
such to God. But somehow I could not think it neces- 
sary for us to do that. Do you? B. C. H. 

"The man of perfect virtue, wishing to estahlish himself, 
seeks also to establish others; wishing to enlarge himself, 
he seeks to enlarge others." — Confucius. 

There is as great a knack in putting a question as in 
answering one, and this friend has that knack. If our 
answer to the question will open to the questioner as 
broad a field of thought as her asking the question has 
opened to the writer, we all shall have gained by it. 
First, then, what is the meaning of being good? One 
man's standard of Goodness is quite different from 
another's. No two standards are alike. I have my 
standard, you have yours, but neither you nor I have 
any right to compel another to come up to that 
standard. My standard is for me ; your standard for 
you. fl Christ's standard of Goodness was for him. It 
was so different from the then orthodox standard of 
Goodness that he was crucified for teaching it. 
And, again, what is meant by the expression "been to 
God?" One child has its way of going to its father 
and telling him what it believes he will be interested 
in knowing; another child has another way. There 
may be a vast difference in the way they do it, but 
who shall say one way is wrong and the other right? 
fl And then, too, dear heart, isn't Goodness Goodness, 
wherever you find it? If so, and you spend your days 

5i 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

in doing what you believe to be good, are you to be 
damned in spite of it all because you do not comply 
with what another has set as his standard of Good- 
ness ? fl Christ met the same rebuke at the hands of 
the priests of long ago. He neglected to fulfill the 
requirements of the orthodox church and, instead, 
spent his days comforting the widows and fatherless, 
healing the sick, and feeding the poor. He even went 
so far as to desecrate the Sabbath in the very face of 
a hostile priesthood. 

No amount of law observance would have put the 
spirit of love into Christ. And with all the sackcloth 
and ashes business demanded of him by the priests, 
the Son of God never could have accomplished his 
mission on earth had he done that, and that only, thus 
fulfilling the law. 

I am not going to say what is essential to Goodness 
in you. I only know what is essential to goodness in 
myself. But of this I am sure: if I should hear a 
child go to its earthly parent day after day, week in 
and week out, and whine about being so miserably 
sinful, I should feel that that parent was not fulfilling 
his duty to that child did he not lay the youngster 
across his knee and spank some goodness into it. I do 
not want to say anything unorthodox, but really, now, 
don't you think God gets very tired hearing this 
melancholy wail that goes up day after day about 
man's sinful and wormy condition? 
I would not say that man should refuse to humble 
himself before God and ask His forgiveness. If we 
feel we have done wrong to anybody we ought to be 

52 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

ready at all times to make matters right by seeking 
forgiveness. But, goodness, me ! Are we to be "weak 
and unworthy, miserable offenders" forever? And if 
not forever, then how long? Until we have "been to 
God?" And who is to say when that is? When we 
have joined some orthodox church? Perhaps, for 
some. But I am sure the worst complainers I ever 
heard have been the best followers of orthodoxy. Sun- 
day after Sunday, year after year, they carry the same 
story to God about their unworthiness and miserable 
sinfulness. Mind you, I am not saying they are not 
unworthy. For I do not think any man is worthy of 
another's love who believes that he is not. I would 
not give my love to anyone who was ever whining 
about his unworthiness. Would you? And I am posi- 
tive, from what I have seen, that God does not. 
The man or woman who is worthy of God's love gets 
it. And the best evidence we can have that a man has 
"been to God" is when we see him engaged in acts of 
kindness to his fellows, and standing upright before 
the world as a man, made in the image of God, un- 
abashed and not afraid. God does not want man made 
in his image to go groveling in the earth like a worm. 
I have very little respect for the man who can go to 
church Sabbath after Sabbath and, falling upon his 
knees, cry, "Good Lord, deliver us; forgive us, Good 
Lord; miserable offenders; we have left undone what 
we ought to have done, and have done what we ought 
not to have done, and there is no help in us." This is 
not humility. It is downright shamefulness. fl The 
best indication we can have that a man has repented 

53 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

of his sins is when he leaves off sinning. A business 
man does not mind a mistake now and then, but he 
detests having an employe about him who is everlast- 
ingly making mistakes, and coming whiningly to him 
confessing them. It is impossible for that man to 
grow into a more useful person while he persists in 
making mistakes, and is content to live in the false 
belief that confession of guilt is an excuse for wrong. 
Confession of guilt is nothing — repentance is nothing 
— if it does not lead a man to determine to quit the 
offense. And what is true in this respect of business 
is true in matters pertaining to man's spiritual condi- 
tion. It is psychologically impossible for a man to 
become anything but a miserable sinner while he car- 
ries that thought in his mind, fl We become like our 
thoughts. If the mind is occupied with thoughts of 
our importance as messengers or mediums through 
which the Divine Power is working his own purpose, 
we forget all about the matter of sin and become ready 
instruments in the hands of the Power that is in and 
through and behind all. And as we hold the thought 
that we are Gods in the chrysalis we molt the idea 
that we are miserable sinners, and grow into God's 
handiwork in that we become like Him. And we 
never worry our heads about so small a matter as that 
of "being good," and "meeting God." When God 
wants us to meet Him, He will call us to Him. Until 
he does, it is enough for us to mind our own business 
and let Him use us as He sees best, in prosecuting the 
work of bringing all Nature into a more perfect ex- 
pression of the Divine Love and beauty and power. 

54 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

You are right, dear heart; God does not want us to 
spend our time in useless regrets. And as for this 
good old orthodox custom of daubing one's self a 
"miserable sinner," and living so as to make the appel- 
lation stick; well, if that is the highest ambition one 
has, Nature will boost him that way. She is, however, 
just as ready to boost him the other way. 
When our good brother, the Nazarene, said, "Forgive 
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass 
against us," he simply gave expression to a law that is 
absolutely just; a law that God himself could not 
reverse. It is that immutable law of Compensation. 
"Forgive us as we forgive." That is it: As we for- 
give. In the measure we forgive, we shall be forgiven. 
And so, dear heart, if we hold no malice against an- 
other — if we forget his weaknesses by focussing our 
gaze and our love upon his virtues, God will do like- 
wise with us, and if we see no sin in others, God will 
see no sin in us. Jesus in his abundant love tried so 
hard to teach this. But he could not because the 
world was not ready for it. He gave his life because 
the law demanded it in compensation for the privilege 
of teaching his gospel of love, and in the giving gained 
immortality, a worthy recompense. 
ft "She thinks we ought to acknowledge ourselves to 
be poor, miserable sinners." How often? Every day? 
All the time? Who gains by such an acknowledg- 
ment? God, or we? Do you think God wants to have 
a lot of "poor, miserable sinners" working for Him? 
I would not. Would you? I like to have as associates 
in business and social life, men and women who 

55 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

haven't any time to quarrel with themselves, with God 
or with anyone else about their poor, miserable state. 
Men are poor and miserable, and sinful, too, only 
when they think they are. God does not want them to 
be, and nobody else wants them to be. But, when a 
man insists that he is, why, then, he is. That is his 
privilege, and we must acknowledge his right. Still 
he would be a much finer specimen of manhood were 
he to break away from that accursed belief and come 
out strong in the Sunlight of the Universal Love. 
Why, bless your soul, brother, sister; what good rea- 
son can we have for loading our minds down with 
such distressing thoughts of sinfulness? Are we made 
any better by it? Be honest with yourself, now: do 
you feel you are making yourself or the world any 
better by confessing oft and sorrowfully that you are 
such a poor specimen of Nature's handiwork that you 
have got to keep up a continual quarrel with yourself 
about what you have done and left undone? Don't 
you think it would be more elevating for you, and 
therefore for the world, if you and I would cast off 
this puny attitude of weakness — for sinfulness is weak- 
ness — and get the thought firmly implanted in the 
mind that we amount to something, and are really 
instruments in the Divine Expression of the grandest 
and noblest and best in Nature? 

How much love and cheer and happiness can a miser- 
able workman in any calling bring or give to the 
world? How much of purity and faith and fellowship 
can a miserable sinner radiate on the path of life? 
fl No, no ; it cannot be ! We must look higher than 

56 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

this plane of thought of man's unworthiness, if we are 
to develop into something more useful to the world 
than a sin besmirched animal, self-appointed to be 
damned. 

So long as man holds to this unworthy belief about 
himself, and what he knows as his God, he will not 
reach the plane he should, fl Let us abstain from doc- 
trinizing and criticising. No man can doubt the sin- 
cerity of the men of all ages who have drummed this 
doctrine of sin into the heads of all peoples. It has 
continued until the world stinks to high heaven with a 
sinfulness self-inflicted, and foolish as it is unmerited. 
But, really, brother, do you believe that man is lower 
in the scale of animal life than the plant by my side or 
the pig across the way? The plant is not a "miserable 
sinner." It lives its life pure and holy in the hands of 
Nature. Its purpose in life is to express the Divine 
in Nature. The hog may wallow in filth, but that is 
his nature and, in spite of it, he is as pure and unde- 
fined an expression of Nature as the rose in the garden 
or the new born babe at the mother's breast. Because 
one is lower in the scale of life than the other, it does 
not follow that it is less true in its expression of the 
Divine; and if not less true, then it is as holy as the 
other; whatever this word "holy" may mean. 
Man develops by easy stages. The time he spends in 
his present form is not long. What he shall next be 
we cannot know. But this is sure: if he strives ear- 
nestly and seeks diligently to express from day to day 
more of the Divine in Nature, he shall develop into a 

57 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

more perfect medium through which more of what we 
call God shall find expression. 

The fact that this is the way Nature does all things 
should cause us to stop in our foolish efforts to reach 
heaven by any other road. Nature will not be balked. 
She is Divine, and through her we see God. Nature 
puts as much of what we call God in every man as is 
necessary to make him radiate the life of Goodness. 
fl False teaching from away back down the ages has 
caused humanity to lose heart in itself. Hence the 
"miserable sinner" cry. But Nature is not so fickle 
as man. She ever stands ready to express through the 
individual as much of the Divine as the individual is 
capable of giving expression to. And his capacity is 
all a matter of the man's willingness to serve and his 
susceptibility of growth, coupled with his readiness to 
truthfully express the note that sounds in his heart. 
fl I say heart, because we understand the expression, 
but, as a matter of fact, we do not know where that 
little monitor we call Conscience lives; nor do we 
know that it is anything but the Divine in us. We 
feel it, but cannot tell whence it came nor whither 
bound. It is omnipresent but inexplainable. May it 
not be the God in us? 

I have said that Nature puts enough of God in every 
man to make this world a paradise if man would give 
expression to it. Study it out and see if it isn't true. 
fl Instead of expressing his goodness, man has assumed 
the "miserable sinner" attitude, and the cry of the age 
is, "Good Lord, deliver us from ourselves." The 
assumption of sin has been handed down from father 

58 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

to child, until man, instead of being true to Nature, 
and allowing her perfect unfoldment through him, 
makes a felon of himself and his fellows. 
And millions and millions of dollars are spent annually 
to erect churches wherein men make a show of good- 
ness and sing praises to a God, who would, if per- 
mitted, find infinitely better expression through them 
in the every day work they do. 



f£\ E laugh at the old lady, and the young one, who 
%X»4 expects to discover some sign of a favorable 
future in her teacup, and yet, we men do sometimes 
look for as foolish things in what we call luck, and 
chance. We believe we must wait for the oppor- 
tunity before we can strike out for Success. If there 
is any one opportunity of a life time, when a man may 
look for results of his labors, it is when he decides 
definitely and forever to throw off all dependence on 
luck and chance, and centers his efforts on achieve- 
ment through character, enterprise, and self-education. 
You are not prepared for another job until you can 
unselfishly love the job you have got. When push is 
applied to patience, and plod to purpose, no power on 
earth can cut you off from the paychute of Success. 

59 



JUST A THOUGHT 

"I preached as never sure to preach again, 
And as a dying man to dying men." — Baxter. 



ET us go back tonight in memory to 
the old home far away, and take a 
peep in at Mother. She's waiting 
there to greet us, as only Mother 
can. Supper is over; the dishes are 
washed, and Mother has picked up 
the piece of work laid down when 
supper was announced. Adjusting 
her glasses she bends low to see the 
stitches are right, and proceeds in 
silence. Brother and sister are in 
the room. They have taken up their 
books to read, and are laying back 
for a lazy evening. A busy day at 
the office makes the quiet rest need- 
ful, and they do not want to be dis- 
turbed. Mother has been alone all 
day, with nobody about to talk to. 
She wants to talk now. A question 
or two is asked, but, receiving only 
a disinterested yawn for an answer, 
she concludes not to say any more, 
and silently works on. 
A sigh from the heart tells of a load 
there, but she chokes it back and 
bends closer to her work. Her 
thoughts turn to the son and daugh- 
ter out East — no matter where — you 
60 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and I. Green fields are always away over there. 
Angelic daughters, and affectionate sons are, too. If 
you and I were only home — there by her side. The 
word of love, of confidence, that her dear ears have so 
long wanted to hear, would in love be spoken, and the 
tears of anguish now suppressed would give place to 
tears of joy. 

Her Mother love ignores distance and starts out upon 
the sea of space like a Marconi "tick" to be picked up 
by the sympathetic heart tuned in harmony with hers. 
Into the hills of the lumber camps, up and down the 
village streets, and into the heights and depths of the 
city's dives of manlessness, the vibrant love from the 
signal tower of Mother's heart flits here and there. 
She calls and signals for the love of the boy and girl 
away from home; she longs to get in touch with the 
one who can bring joy to her lonely heart, fl Perhaps 
that one is you! See! Do you not see her, sitting 
lonely there, listening with the ears of the heart — ears 
so delicately attuned that the faintest wave of love 
flowing from you will be picked up by that heart of 
hearts! There is something so tender in Mother's 
love, something almost divine. There isn't a manly 
man that breathes who does not feel it — and honor it. 
Get in touch then, brother! Every thought of her 
flies home. It brings joy to her and ennobles you. 
And, think of it! All it costs is a thought — just a 
thought ! 



SN'T it unfortunate that we are not somebody 
else! 

61 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

THE HARVEST OF OUR HEARTACHES. 

"The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss." — Byron. 

"^T ATURE is as much pleased at our heartaches as 
•L ^ at our joys. She is served as much by one as 
the other. And so, when life's trials bear heavily upon 
you — when the storms of criticism and sorrow roll 
over you — when the Valley of Defeat encompasses 
you ; then, of all times, be brave ! 
If Oh, the good of a robust heartache ! What growth 
we experience in it — if we take it rightly! What love 
has been planted; what joy has sprouted; what faith 
has bloomed! When stricken as from above by the 
hand of fate, or of a friend; when the light that has 
shone about us has been snuffed, and we are left, as it 
were, in darkness, and the shadow of gloom ; when our 
very heartstrings seem almost to break, how prone 
we are to give up ! how easy then to be conquered ! 
And yet, when we relax, when we cease to struggle, 
we find the phantom of sorrow disappears and we have 
nothing left to fight. Then, bless you, what a flood of 
joy comes into the heart, and how strong our love has 
grown ! I have seen faces, and so have you, which told 
of hearts nigh bursting with grief : dazed, stunned, be- 
reft ; seen them in the street, in the home — in the glass, 
alone in the solitude of the bed-chamber. The look of 
anguish wrung our hearts. We tried to smile, and 
the face tried to smile back at us, but the lines tight- 
ened about the lips and great tears welled to the eyes. 
Something much prized has gone out of the life; per- 

62 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

haps someone has ceased to live, and there is such a 
hunger for love, such a capacity for affection! How 
we long to give the word that will give cheer and 
comfort; if we could but tell the sorrowing one that 
there is no tragedy except for those who believe it; 
that the hammering of Fate is but to put the soul into 
better trim for the work to be demanded of it — that 
every tear-drop carries from the heart some expression 
of the Divine personality; that the pains we feel are 
but the growing-pains of Nature giving birth to some 
new attribute in our cosmos. What "though some 
loved form is lying cold and rigid in death — will not 
we, too, some day fold our hands, just so, across our 
breasts and sleep! Or if love has gone to another, 
why should we desire to compel it; would we not 
make those free we love?" And, too, is not death as 
much the fulfillment of life as living? When the rose 
bush is dropping its leaves, and stands thorny and 
crooked and bare, is it fulfilling less the requirements 
of Nature than when it stands beautiful and green 
with foliage, and rich in fragrant bloom? 



SUNSHINE OUT. 



'Ye are wondrous strong, 
Yet lovely in your strength, "—Scott. 



FLEE the patronizing, superior man and woman. 
The world has little need of him or her. Such per- 
sons do exist, 'tis unfortunately true, and occasionally 
we see them thrust into positions they should not oc- 

63 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

cupy, but they are not needed. The community is 
better off without them. I have in mind an incident 
in life which I once saw portrayed. There was a dear 
old lady, surprisingly clever, kind, motherly, and con- 
siderate. And she was the plainest person that ever 
smoothed the troubled brow of sorrow's waif. Simple ! 
why, bless you, she was simple as Mother — so simple 
she was misunderstood. There came before the grand, 
womanly soul a young, talkative thing with patron- 
izing air, who knew so little she did not have to think 
when she talked. At a little social event the young 
woman brushed rudely by the old lady, with proud 
head thrown back and lips set in disdainful mockery. 
As she drew near the second time, leaning on the arm 
of her escort and with an air of superiority betokening 
ignorance, the dear lady leaned forward and smiled. 
That was all she did. But there was such simple 
kindness — such mother love — such nobility of char- 
acter, behind that smile that the proud vixen was 
brought low, and for the moment she was a child 
again. 

It is such simplicity this old world needs. It wants 
men and women who can rise above jealousy, malice, 
hate, whim, envy and fear — whose lives are pure as 
the atmosphere of the snow-capped hills — who live, 
and want others to live, their lives up to their highest 
and best. Men and women who will say the word of 
encouragement to the heart-sick soul, and will turn 
every sorrow bright side out — who will meet every 
disappointment, every difficulty, thoughtfully, and 
without fear and unabashed. Men and women who 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

believe that the man who follows the plow is as good 
as the man who sits at the desk of the ruler of the 
nation — provided the man behind the plow is as simple 
and honest and kind; as frank and natural and God- 
loving, as the man at the head of the nation. 



CHE person who readily perceives faults, will never 
see anything else, for the eye is not trained to 
catch the good. Why? Why, because Goodness or 
Godness is not a part of their make-up. We attract 
the thoughts we hold. All Nature is in harmony. 
God's earth is as it should be. If it does not har- 
monize with our moods, we should change them. For, 
look here, brother; if we are suspicious of our fellows 
here we shall be suspicious of our fellows there: if 
we do not take heaven with us into the next world, it 
will be hell to be in heaven. 

STAND for something! Don't be a putty man. 
Make your individuality felt , whatever your 
sphere of life. No circumstance, or combination of 
circumstances, can be set up as an excuse for your 
being a cipher. The greatest hindrance to success 
is self-distrust, and a lack of the initiative. Men were 
not created in the mass. God's best gift to you is 
your originality. Cherish it. It is yours. No one can 
take it from you if you refuse to let them. 

65 



THE SNAKE THAT GOD MADE 

"Dost thou think, because thou art vir- 
tuous, there shall be no more cakes and 
ale ?" — Shakespeare. 



U 



DO not know what happens to you 
when you tread ruthlessly upon an 
ant, and beat the life out of a snake 
with a club; but when I hear of 
your doing it, my heart tells me 
there is so much less of God in the 
world and more of evil, for God is 
as much in the snake as in the ant, 
and as much in either as in you." 
This thought has astounded some. 
Others it has set thinking. One dear 
heart tells me : "Oh, no ! my friend ; 
God fills all space; he is not in us 
nor in animals, but everything re- 
flects God in degree. The moon re- 
flects the sun, but the sun is not in 
the moon, nor is the moon in the 
sun." 

Without going into any discussion 
of theology, let us draw close to 
that heart within and see what it 
tells us. It is true, as far as we 
know, that the sun is not in the 
moon. This, however, has nothing 
to do with God in man. According 
to scientists the moon is a dead 
world. What it was before it be- 
came a dead world we have no way 
66 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

of knowing. It reflects the sunshine ; it does not reflect 
the sun. To reflect the sun it would have to be alive 
and give forth the heat of the sun as well as the 
sunshine. 

Jesus had the right conception of life — perhaps the 
most natural and truest that ever came to man. And 
when he said: "My father and I are one; my father 
in me, I in you," he touched the source of all life, but 
did not go into it, for the world was not ready for it 
then. The same condition has stood in the way of 
many men since Christ, and deterred them in making 
known a fuller conception of man's relationship to the 
Power we call God. 

Man is not a dead thing like the moon. The con- 
sciousness and subconsciousness of man; the impulses 
to do good that are in us all, no matter what our 
faith, our calling or creed, is an absolute assurance to 
my mind that the power or being we call God is not 
only in, and working through, but is actually a part 
of man. Our conception of the Being we know as God 
depends on our conception of the being we know as 
man. If our conception of one is erroneous, unnatural 
and weak, our conception of the other will be erron- 
eous, unnatural and weak. 

We know life only in the measure that we live it. If 
my mind has been confined to a narrow channel of 
thought in relation to my soul and the soul of my 
fellows; if I have been reared in the belief of man's 
eternal damnation, and his absolute unworthiness 
before the God Father who knows all and is in all 
space — and therefore must be in all living things that 

67 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

fill all space — then it will be unnatural for me to real- 
ize that God is in all. It will be extremely difficult, 
too, for me to see more than the animal in the man 
beside me. 

But, on the other hand, if my mind thinks only those 
things of my fellows that brings man closer in har- 
mony with nature and therefore with God, then it 
were easy for me to see God in my fellowman as well 
as in the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and 
the green grass that carpets the rolling hills. 
To know all is to love all, and to love all is to know 
God. We cannot know Him in any other way than by 
knowing him in and through the men and women by 
our side. If we live close enough to the Universal 
Heart we shall know in a natural way the God in 
Nature and what heaven is. If we have allowed man 
to detract our thoughts from the God Man in Man, 
then we shall pass clean out of harmony with the deep 
underlying principle that is in all Nature, and our 
thoughts, will be restricted to the narrow line where 
Nature's shallows lay bare the weaknesses of the man 
animal. 

To say that we know God while there is a particle of 
doubt in our minds about the inherent Godhead in 
man, is to deceive ourselves. If God is not in man 
then he is not anywhere; and if man does not make 
heaven in his heart he will not experience it anywhere. 
This is a pessimistic view, say you? No. For me it 
is the essence of Optimism, fl I waste no time dream- 
ing about the heaven to come. I do not care if I 
never see another heaven than this, fl I waste no time 

68 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

trying "to be good," so as to get to heaven when I 
die. I want to do my duty to my fellows, that is all. 
Not that I may have their praise, but that I may know 
I have given expression truthfully and naturally to 
the voice of Nature speaking in and through me. Bet- 
ter that my physical body were dead than that I 
should harness my thoughts to a foolish belief that 
God is in all space and yet not in the live, pulsating 
hearts of the creatures of His handiwork. Sad, indeed, 
the thought that the Infinite should fill all space, and 
ignore the Being created in his own image. Every 
atom of the universe is God in the atom. 
This thing we call sin is the result of man's abuse and 
misuse of the God in all. To teach that man is full of 
sin is an absurdity. He is no more sinful than the 
Creator, if he follows the course of Nature and lives 
true to the God within. When I am true to myself 
and express the Truth as it seeks expression through 
me, then I am in harmony with the Divine in Nature, 
for then I have suppressed nothing. Suppression is 
the one great evil. There is none other like it, in that 
growth is stifled by it, and when we stop growing, we 
die (though we may not be buried), and are no longer 
fit instruments through which Life may speak. 
As I sit in the sunshine on the green hillside, with a 
scene of beauty before me, I know my God is here. 
In the grass at my feet ; in the flowering weed by my 
side; in the cricket singing under the stone to my 
right, and the cow bellowing for supper to my left ; in 
the barking dog, the cackling hen, and the croaking 
frogs over there — in it all I see God as much as in 

69 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

myself, fl All is at peace, and there is harmony every- 
where. 

It were shameful heresy to accuse God by Nature of 
thrusting into Being human forms of life capable of 
Divinity, with all the attributes of God, and then 
brand them as unworthy of anything but eternal dam- 
nation. 

With this teaching coming to us from the dark ages 
of the past, and with the thought hammered into man 
by self-appointed saint and priest, is it any wonder — 
is it at all strange — that man should throw up his 
hands and go laughingly to hell in his dissoluteness? 
This may sound harsh. It may be bad orthodoxy. But 
it is the untarnished Truth as I feel Nature expresses 
it through me. And my cry is one of joy, for Nature 
has unfolded another bud of expression, thus serving 
herself and bringing to greater perfection the great 
plan of the universe. 

jf A good Presbyterian pastor once asked me : "If you 
were to teach a child of spiritual things, how would 
you do it: would you recognize that child and teach 
it as a sinless being, or would you teach it as if it 
were a sinful being?" My reply was simple : "I would 
teach it as if speaking to a sinless being." 
|f All men and women who have had anything to do 
with training boys and girls will bear me out in this : 
if you would bring out the best in a child treat it as 
if it were good and capable of better things. Treat a 
child as a sinful thing and he will be sinful. What is 
true of the child is true of the man. Let any school 
or society — call it church or what you will — drill into 

70 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

the mind of man the impression that he is totally 
unworthy; that he, in contradistinction to all other 
forms of life, is so untrue to Nature, or to the Uni- 
versal Life, that the Supreme Being — the Power Over 
All — has foreordained his damnation, and what do we 
have? Why, man, believing himself to be lower in 
the scale of life than the beasts of the field, the insects, 
the birds, the creeping and swimming things, and even 
the flowering and fruit-bearing plant life — for none of 
these has a standing quarrel with God : — man deliber- 
ately accepts the judgment passed upon him without a 
hearing and makes the most of it. 
We are taught from the cradle to the grave to look 
upon our Brother Christ as one whose infinite love 
prompted him to give his life for sins he never did 
commit. Why, my dear brother, what greater sacri- 
fice did Jesus Christ make than that made by hun- 
dreds of men who have incurred the displeasure of 
the church since his day? What did he more than 
they? He was nailed to the cross, while in the dark 
days of the Inquisition men as faithful and as heroic 
as he were burned alive at the stake, turning their 
faces away from the crucifix held to their lips by the 
priests who prayed for them and fired the fagots in the 
name of God. 

Oh, no; let us not load our minds with thoughts of 
man's inferiority to other mediums of Nature, or- 
dained by the Being or Power we call God, to express 
more perfectly His infinite mind, and for the larger 
unfoldment of his great love. 
Get close to yourself, brother, sister; see the great 

7i 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

possibilities that lie within you. You are not poor, 
and miserable! You are the divinest thing made! 
Not to be ever awhining at, and quarreling with, 
Nature and with God ! He will not quarrel with you. 
Why should you quarrel with him? 
Why should we form ourselves into a society to incul- 
cate that foolish notion that God is a something far, 
far away, and yet everywhere, filling all space, and 
yet not in man? Why should we leave to the trees, 
the plants, the birds, the insects, the animals and the 
reptiles the unfoldment of Nature, while we, the 
higher mediums for the expression of Nature's handi- 
work, debase ourselves and go about with the cry, 
"Unclean! Unclean!" upon our lips. 
Think sinfulness of yourself and you will be sinful. 
Think Godliness of yourself and you will act Godly. 



'££\ HEN you hear another spoken of disparagingly 
^^^ by a crowd of men or women you may put it 
down as a sure thing that the absent one has much 
merit; for when people are courageous enough to 
bunch their opinions of him in the other fellow's 
absence, he must have many good qualities. 

IF it were not for the little jealousies and petty 
strifes that pester life in a small community, we 
might ask Jesus to come over and visit us. 

72 



DONT mmSL ™ BABY WRONG 

"What! would'st thou have a serpent 
sting thee twice?"' 



T IS mighty dangerous business to 
nurse a wrong — dangerous, because 
if we allow our minds to dwell on 
the evils our neighbor has done us, 
we become like him. It is im- 
possible to rise higher than our 
thoughts. No man is perfect, God 
knows; all have faults. And yet, 
knowing this, it is none the less 
difficult to think as much of a man 
after we have discovered in him 
some hidden weakness as we did 
before. But our true nobility is 
shown, not in calling attention to 
that weakness, but, rather, in draw- 
ing the curtain on the scene of 
weakness, and, looking deeper, dis- 
covering the good lying beneath: 
for as sure as God made man, there 
is goodness in every one. It is our 
fault if we fail to discover it. Isn't 
it better for us to seek diligently to 
find what we know ought to be 
there, though we may not know at 
the time just where, than to jump at 
the fault that everybody can see and 
repeat what everybody knows? 
When I was spending some years in 
73 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

the northern mining country, I was impressed deeply 
by the incessant, hopeful work of the prospector. He 
rolls his blankets, .and with a skillet, a tin pail, a piece 
of bacon, some beans, flour, salt and pepper on his 
back starts for the hills. He never knows how long 
he will be gone, nor what hardships he will encounter 
before he returns. He only knows that he is going to 
prospect a mineral zone for a ledge that carries pre- 
cious metal — gold, silver, copper, or galena. He knows 
the formation is right ; knows the metal is there some- 
where, and starts in to find it. Others have been over 
the ground and found nothing. Perhaps a piece of 
float has been discovered, but, after weeks of search- 
ing and finding nothing, they have concluded that the 
good piece was carried there from some other locality 
by a glacier or landslide, and give up the search. But 
the man who knows will not give up. The prospector 
finds the wash deep, and the float comes only now and 
then. For days he digs about without finding any- 
thing to give him encouragement. But he keeps dig- 
ging. Over and over the ground he goes. He knows 
it ought to be there : the formation is true. But, alas ; 
for weeks and months and sometimes years he seeks 
on. Then one day when all but discouraged he strikes 
his pick into the ledge that opens in an ore-body, 
which has been hidden from the critical eye of man 
for decades by only a few inches of surface wash — 
and he is rich — rich, indeed ! 

We can afford to take a lesson from the life of the 
prospector, in our search for the good in our fellow- 
man. I think the heart of every man has a pay-shoot 

74 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

of rich ore that would be a blessing to humanity, and 
to himself, if discovered and developed. The wash 
may not be so deep as the surface indicates. Perhaps 
you have missed it in your brother by only a few 
inches. I have known rich shoots of ore to be lost by 
the thickness of a layer of talc, and mines have been 
abandoned as worthless, when only a few inches to 
right or left of the wall of the workings a rich body of 
ore was lying, waiting to be uncovered. r Look more 
diligently; perhaps it will be necessary for you to 
drill deeper. 

r Know this : the formation is right — the ore ought to 
be there ! 



AGE AND DEPENDENCE. 

' WiftkMf i rr2.~5 uc'sr.ellec, - ^:::^.rad s.zi -^zkzzTrz.," 
— Byrcn. 

WHEN grandpa gets old, and the fringe of gray 
circling his bowed head grows thinner and ever 
thinner; when the eyes become dim, the hearing faint, 
and his step faltering; when the mind cannot grasp 
the new or hold fast to the old; when ambition, faith, 
hope and love are running low. and the spark of Life 
becomes ever more faint; then we realize as never 
before that without these virtues — in a word, without 
youth — man is, after all, only a small piece of misery 
of few years and little worth. Only a vitalized clod — 
a whimsical, selfish thing without the instinct of the 

75 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

animal and yet with insatiable habits of greed and 
grouch. 

With old age man falls back again to the infant stage, 
but cannot carry with him the charms of babyhood. 
Instead, having added to his peevish nature the pas- 
sions and weaknesses of an indulgent life, he bears 
upon his shoulders the cross of having lived, fl We 
coo and coddle the child, but the old man goes to and 
fro, unhappy, unnoticed, unmourned. He is treated 
scornfully by the son, and the aged mother, who all 
but gave her life for the boy, receives scant love. Oh, 
yes; I know. In youth we forget that the day will 
come when we, too, shall become old and feeble, and 
in the way — and perhaps alone. Then shall we, too, 
ask the bread of sympathy, and receive a stone; then 
shall we seek the companionship of those we would 
love, and, alas, find the fountain of love closed to us. 
Our passions, our whims, our fancies, shall refuse to 
down, because all these years we have failed to exer- 
cise love toward those who needed our tenderest 
thought and consideration. Then shall we sorrow as 
the old folks sorrow now. 



IT is a common error to accuse another of incon- 
sistence, or worse, when he has the boldness to 
do things not in harmony with our own way of think- 
ing and doing. Every man has his own way of look- 

76 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

ing at things — or should have — independent of what 
others may have. And our attitude toward any 
accepted form of worship, or the indulgence of any 
passion, depends on our state of health and the nature 
of our early training. The man whose digestive 
apparatus works without causing pain and uneasiness, 
seldom troubles himself about the inconsistencies to 
be found in his own life, or in the lives of others. But 
to the man or woman whose love is a problem in 
mathematics, and whose soul a problem in meta- 
physics, no person will appear consistent who ven- 
tures beyond the narrow confines in which the holy 
one stews. But to the man of Universal Love ; whose 
heart, and soul are attuned to the God in Nature, in 
man, in life, in death, in things present, and things to 
come — to him, all is consistency. There isn't any 
inconsistency when we know all. To know all is to 
forgive all, for then there is nothing to forgive. It is 
a distressing thing when one can see only inconsist- 
ency and sin in another's contrary opinion. The man 
who does things has no time to waste in thinking 
about consistency, in himself or his neighbor. The 
trouble with most people who complain of another's 
inconsistency is that they never have experienced a 
healthy, full-lunged inhalation of the Spirit of Love. 
Like the Jews — the holy Jews — of long ago, they 
brand a man a blasphemer and an evil-doer because 
he will not stop in his development until they catch 
up. H Nothing is totally bad that God has made and 
allows to live. 

77 



THE HEART OF THINGS 



PLAYING AT VIRTUE. 

"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." — Horace. 

WHEN a man confesses that he is a thief and is 
convicted of a crime, there is no logical reason 
why he should be ostracised from society. The mere 
fact of his being a thief should not preclude the con- 
sideration of his other qualities. When we know a 
man as a doctor, or a minister, or a carpenter, or an 
artist we do not stop at that. We admit that he may 
also be a violinist, or a singer, or a poet, and we credit 
him accordingly. And so, if the world condemns you 
for being a thief it should at the same time admire you 
for being a genius. If it fails to admire you for one 
thing it has no right to condemn you for another. 
We hear the man or woman condemned for some small 
act of indiscretion that amounts to very little. In a 
moment of weakness he or she of our acquaintance 
commits an act against the established laws of 
society, or what we consider to be right and wrong, 
and at once we are prepared to shy a stone and cry, 
begone! Blinded by prejudice, we will not consider 
his or her many good qualities, but center our whole 
gaze upon the one act of folly or weakness and mag- 
nify it many times. Then we take the brush from the 
pot of passion and paint in letters of red the judgment 
of the damned over the humble cottage door. And 
think, ye Gods ! that we have done our duty ! 

78 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Who gave to us to be judge of another? Who gave 
to us to say what is sin in anyone but ourselves? All 
men and all women are more or less of a sham. As we 
look upon them we do not see the real person. We 
see them as we think they are. At heart all are sin- 
cere; we cannot escape that fact. And yet, I play at 
virtue just as you do, and all the while entertain lust- 
ful desires. Fain would I lift my soul into the Realm 
of Day, but prone am I to nestle in the passionate 
embrace of Indulgent Night. We condemn readily, 
not that we feel any real injury because of the offense, 
or that condemnation is necessary, but because it is 
fashionable. And we do it as if we had a right ! 
We do not seek to see the goodness in others as we 
ought. Nor do we show to others the goodness that 
is in ourselves. Our Inner Life seldom is brought in 
contact with the Inner Life of the man by our side. 
Beneath this life of sham we hide the Real, and, I do 
not know, but I believe, that that Real is God. 



I WOULD rather know that I have the confidence 
of one friend who understands me, than be pes- 
tered by the applause of the multitude, who are 
tickled today, plucked tomorrow, and damned the 
next day. 

79 



HERSYxo^Sg&w OKTHODGXif 



"The fools who came to scoff remained to 
pray. ' ' — Goldsmith. 



HIS world is full of incongruities. 
When we think we have found the 
correct thing and begin to pride our- 
selves on having at last made a dis- 
covery, we soon are disappointed on 
finding that what we believed was 
new and nearly perfect has many 
unsatisfying features about it, and 
is really not new at all, but quite 
old. We find real satisfaction in 
one thing only, and that one thing 
is in Being Natural — living as 
though there were nothing new 
under the sun, and in the knowledge 
that to know one's self is to know 
mankind. 

The all important thing for a man 
is, first, to make sure of growth. 
This is not so easy, for it is natural 
for us to be somewhat anxious to 
know that our conduct is in correct 
keeping with the common verdict of 
what is just proper. We are slow 
to perceive that advancement means 
initiative, and are prone to cling to 
the old order of things, because in 
this there is less friction. We are 
much concerned lest Sarah Jane or 
80 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Father Church should think we are inconsistent 
should we follow the dictates of the heart, and go 
contrary to what Sarah Jane or Father Church has 
considered the proper thing for us to do. Thus we 
leave many things undone that we ought to have done, 
and oft-times go contrary to the heart's desire for fear 
of what Sarah Jane or Father Church might think of 
us. And in so doing we please them greatly and 
remain quite orthodox. And that is all. 
If Orthodoxy is defined as "soundness in opinion and 
doctrine. ,, But to be orthodox does not mean to be 
sound in opinion and doctrine. It means to be sound 
on what is at the time considered to be sound opinion 
and doctrine. But yesterday's heresy is today's ortho- 
doxy. 

When Bruno went contrary to the established beliefs 
in his astronomical findings, orthodoxy came forward 
and burned him alive. When Capernicus advanced 
his views about the movement of the earth and stars 
around the sun, he delayed publishing his findings for 
twelve years owing to his fear of the unpopularity 
which the work threatened to bring him, it being so 
unorthodox. Owing to the heretical nature of Galileo's 
scientific discoveries he was imprisoned and perse- 
cuted by orthodoxy, fl Thus it ever has been and ever 
will be. The man who is courageous enough to step 
out and away from the orthodox way of thinking must 
ever run the gauntlet of abuse from those who insist 
that he is heretical. Galileo said, "I am inclined to 
believe that the intention of the Sacred Scriptures is 
to give to mankind the information necessary for their 

81 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

salvation. But I do not hold it necessary to believe 
that the same God who has endowed us with senses, 
with speech, with intellect, intended that we should 
neglect the use of these, and seek by other means for 
knowledge which these are sufficient to procure for 
us." fl And because he said things like this he was 
denounced as "atheist" and "infidel," epithets, by the 
way, "which do not frighten us much now, since they 
have been applied to most of the really great and good 
men who have ever lived." Pope Paul V. had Galileo 
thrown into a dungeon because he would not disavow 
that the earth revolved around the sun. 
When Charles Darwin advanced his theory of evolu- 
tion, he was reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the 
world; but he lived to see it irrefragably established 
in science and inseparably incorporated into the com- 
mon thoughts of men. When his "Origin of Species" 
was published, and the tongue of orthodoxy had been 
set wagging, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, 
in the course of a speech on another subject in Lon- 
don, denounced "those enemies of the Church and 
Society who make covert attacks upon the Bible in 
the name of Science." Toward the close of his re- 
marks he happened to spy Huxley, the deep thinker of 
England, seated in the audience, and, pointing his 
finger at him "begged to be informed if the learned 
gentleman was really willing to be regarded as the 
descendant of a monkey?" fl The audience insisted on 
hearing Huxley when the Bishop ceased to speak, and 
the greatest scientist of the age came forward. Huxley 
lacked the exuberance that characterized the florid 

82 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

speech of the Bishop, but he knew his theme and the 
Bishop did not. He demolished the Bishop's card 
house point by point, correcting his gross misstate- 
ments, and ending by saying that "since a question of 
personal preferences had been brought into the dis- 
cussion of a great scientific theme, he would confess 
that if the alternative were a descent on the one hand 
from a respectable monkey, or on the other hand from 
a Bishop of the Church of England who could stoop 
to misrepresentation and sophistry, and who had 
attempted in that presence to throw discredit upon a 
man who had given his life to the cause of science, 
then if forced to decide he would declare in favor of 
the monkey." In so saying Sir Thomas H. Huxley 
was unorthodox, but he was right, fl Whatever we 
may think of Charles Darwin's theory of the "Origin 
of Species," we may know this, that he was a man 
infinitely superior in intellect and learning, and also 
in heart, to the exponents of bigotry who, like the 
Bishop of Oxford, reviled and abused him. Charles 
Darwin was big enough to say this: "I feel most 
deeply that this whole question of creation is too pro- 
found for human intellect. A dog might as well specu- 
late on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and 
believe what he can." 

All things are pure and consistent to the man who is 
big enough to break away from the confines of what 
we term orthodoxy, and is not shackled by prudery 
and bigotry. But let a man adopt this principle in 
his daily social and business life, that he will walk 
with no other guide than his God, and he will find 

83 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

that his conduct will not be in accord with orthodoxy. 
The first stone that is thrown at him will come from 
the Amen corner. Let a man take God into his busi- 
ness as familiarly as he takes the hand of a friend ; let 
him feel that his bedchamber is as holy as the pulpit, 
and that the most menial service is as important as 
preaching the gospel, and his bishop, like the Bishop 
of Oxford, will fling at him his shaft of ridicule. 



JTjjTfHEN we feel that our's is a hard lot, it is well 
^^^ to remember this: If the man Jesus had been 
given a fine home, where he would be pampered and 
waited upon, he would not have got close enough to 
the heart of the world to have become its savior. 



IT is easier to damn than to forgive; and since 
"man makes God in his own image," he teaches, 
and is more ready to believe, that God has chosen the 
lesser virtue rather than exercise the greater. 



££\ HEN we move close to nature, we throw off the 
^^J- frills and foibles that man has added as neces- 
sities to life, and become kings of that simple life that 
the world thinks is greatness. 

84 



THE EMPTINESS** SACRIFICE 

"I have not loved the world, nor the 
world me." — Byron. 



T always gives me a pang of sorrow 
when I hear good men tell of the 
"sacrifice" this one made for that 
one, but much more when I hear 
from pulpit and press the wail about 
the "sacrifice" made by Jesus Christ 
for his brother man. To think that 
man should be so blinded by custom 
as to delude himself into believing 
that service means sacrifice, is to me 
the most sorrowful thing. I once 
heard an eminent Presbyterian di- 
vine preach a sermon on the terrors 
of a Christian life. He went on to 
say that from the cradle of what he 
characterized as man's second birth, 
to the grave, the Christian's life was 
one continuous line of trial and trib- 
ulation, sacrifice and disappoint- 
ment, and in the end, the faithful 
scarcely are saved! In the face of 
an optimism that makes man in the 
image of his God, we have this pes- 
simism that makes him a slave not 
worth saving. And we cannot but 
wonder that two sincere men can 
hold such divergent views. But they 
do. And one is as honest and ear- 
85 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

nest in seeking to know the Truth as the other. 
But let us see for ourselves. What has your expe- 
rience been? What has been the experience of those 
faithful souls we all have met whose lives have been, 
and are being spent practically in the service of hu- 
manity? "My yoke is easy, my burden light," said 
He, the Prince of Saviors ; and thus other saviors com- 
ing after Him have also spoken. Why, then, do we 
insist on making the yoke grievous and the burden 
heavy? All is gain; all is joy; when we live a natural 
life amongst our fellows. To act justly and with 
mercy, doing our duty daily because it is our duty, is 
better than sacrifice. 

Take the testimony of those men and women the world 
over, whose lives have been a practical exemplifica- 
tion of the principles of brotherly love, and whose 
object in life is to serve mankind; do they tell of la- 
borious days of sacrifice and sorrow? Do they com- 
plain of what it has cost them? Not at all. Theirs 
is one long, happy experience of service, and there- 
fore of unfoldment and love. They never know the 
meaning of the word sacrifice— those manly men and 
womanly women. Every moment, every hour, every 
day, they live quietly, joyfully, sincerely, — always 
ready to act in the service of their fellows, — no pining 
for something better; no room, no desire, for more 
joy; no thought of reward, here or hereafter. They 
seek to serve, that is all. And their reward is in hav- 
ing done something for another, jf The teaching that 
service means sacrifice is a curse that came with the 
law about the time of Moses, and which mankind has 

86 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

not yet outgrown. To grow we must serve. When 
we feel that we are sacrificing something in order to 
serve another, it is time we sought to get the devil 
selfishness out of us. The Man Jesus sacrificed noth- 
ing when he gave his life upon the tree ! It was the 
only way left for him to demonstrate his love for man- 
kind, and He gained as much as we in the exercise of 
that love. The lover always is the winner, whether 
his love is reciprocated or not. If I love you, I gain 
more by giving expression to my love than you do in 
being loved by me. We never can love another while 
we hold within us anything of Self-ish-ness. A heart 
big enough to push the oceans out of their beds would 
not be big enough to hold love of self and love for 
another at the same time. And so, when we have self 
love we shall not have the desire to serve, therefore, 
what we do for our fellows will be done with the hand 
out behind. 

But how differently the thought of service comes to 
the man who can forget himself in the transaction, 
whatever it be, and does the thing because it helps 
others to get it done, fl I do not know of a more 
striking example of the indwelling of this Universal 
Love, than that which was found in the life of Henry 
Clay Trumble, who was known for many brilliant 
achievements : in the field of letters, of exploration, of 
research; as an army chaplain, as a public speaker of 
national prominence ; thirty years an editor and writer, 
whose name is a household word in three continents. 
In a personal letter written two years before his death 
to a friend whom he had helped by his kind counsel 

87 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and penetrating inquiries, he said: "You know I am 
just now, and for about two years have been a 'Shut- 
in/ unable to move without assistance; but it is good 
to feel that God enables me still to do something in 
his service for others. I have published two little 
books from this room, and I have two or three more 
that I hope will be of service. I could not have done 
this, had I been able to do my usual work in my 
office." 

The friend did not know up to the time of the receipt 
of that letter that Mr. Trumble was a "shut-in," un- 
able to move without assistance, although he had been 
favored by Mr. Trumble with his earnest, thoughtful 
personal letters once or twice a month for more than 
two years. In all his letters there was that charm 
of unselfishness, coupled with a deep, abiding faith in 
his fellows, and a burning desire to serve; but never 
one word about his own condition, and not the inkling 
of a thought about sacrifice. It was all joyous service 
— because his heart was in his work. 



DON'T be a skimmer ! Get into the heart of things. 
It's the digging and delving that develops a man. 
Ease has killed more men than effort. 

CHERE won't be any shadows to frighten you, 
Sweetheart, if your face is toward the Sun. 

88 



AS AMAN THINKETH 

"There is no man suddenly either excel- 
lently good, or extremely evil."— Sir Philip 
Sidney. 



HE suspicious man is a slave of what 
we call the devil. He suspects every 
man of entertaining an evil motive; 
believes no man is sincere ; and con- 
siders that every man has his price. 
Such a person is to be pitied. For- 
tunately he is greatly in the minor- 
ity. He is one that has narrowed life 
down to the four walls of a hog's 
pen. Manhood to him is an un- 
known quantity. He believes that 
trickery and deceit are the stock and 
trade of all men, and in order to 
protect himself against the duplicity 
of his fellows, he thinks he must 
keep himself in that attitude of sus- 
picion that holds him away from the 
blessings that come through enter- 
taining thoughts of fellowship and 
trustfulness towards others. 
I believe there is much of God in 
every man — and some of the devil, 
too. But I believe the God in man 
has the supremacy, for all the world 
is God, and God is therefore all 
powerful; whereas, the devil gets 
there by growth of our indulgences, 
which may be overcome by chang- 
89 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

ing one's Ideal, and by switching from evil practices to 
helpful practices. 

There is no trait of the devil so subtile and so sure of 
results as that to be found in the suspicious man or 
woman. "We awaken in others the same attitude of 
mind we hold towards them." We see ourselves re- 
flected in them. If our eye is evil we will see evil in 
all things. No matter how innocent the action of an- 
other may be; no matter how honest and sincere the 
motive ; if we have occasion to rub up against the sus- 
picious man, either in business or social life, we will 
find our veracity doubted and our sincerity questioned. 
Pity it is that it is so. Not that Truth is ever injured 
by the conduct of the suspicious man, for that cannot 
be. Truth will live in spite of every suspicion, no mat- 
ter in whom it is found; the utterances of 
any Jackanape or society of Jackanapes cannot disturb 
it. "The wild thyme is itself, nor asks consent of rose 
nor reed." But what I hold true is this : When Truth 
is doubted; when it is reviled; there is occasion for 
pity, for then she turns away, and bestows upon an- 
other the blessing she had for you and me. In the 
transaction we lose ; Truth does not. 
The man who is least suspicious of others, and I 
think this holds true of woman also, will be found the 
most worthy himself. He has been through the dark- 
ness ; he has lived ; he knows. He has learned to trust 
others by being taught to trust himself, fl He has had 
faith; that is it. He has exercised it in himself, and 
in others. Faith is at the bottom of all friendship, all 
learning, all wisdom, and all success. When we lose 

90 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

faith in a friend, we suffer, for in our exercise of faith 
we gain more than the one in whom the faith is exer- 
cised. When a man loses his faith in learning and 
wisdom ; in his fellows and in himself ; he is the great 
loser. Faith is the outgrowth of the noblest that is 
in us. Without faith man is not a whit higher than 
the hog. With it — in abundance — he is only a step 
below God. Thus we see, how great the privilege that 
is ours, and how great the responsibility. 
The fault-finding individual may be absolutely sincere 
and of kind disposition. He simply exhibits a lack of 
faith. If it isn't in the town he lives in it is in the 
house. If not in the house then in the neighbors. If 
not in the neighbors, then in the government. If not 
in the government, then in himself. He sees things 
through an evil eye. 



WHAT BUZZ-SAWS DO 

"Let us do, or die." — Burns. 

WHAT a pity; and yet how natural that it is so! 
The man who bumps into a buzz-saw, blames 
the buzz-saw for cutting him. 

fl Here is a thought for you to carry home : If you 
don't like to be torn to pieces by a buzz-saw, keep out 
of the buzz-saw's way. It is not an original thought, 
but how slow you and I are to take it to ourselves. 

9i 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

The buzz-saw has its business, which is to cut things. 
If it is strong, and sharp and slick and clean it makes 
a clean cut. If it is dull and rusty and wabbles in its 
center, it makes trouble, and men curse it. fl True, 
men curse it, too, when they get hit by it, though it do 
good work, but only those who have got in its way. 
Note this: the buzz-saw does not reach out after 
trouble. It simply is, and because it is, men, when 
they get tired quarreling with themselves, quarrel with 
it. No buzz-saw can be a buzz-saw and not cut. 
When it fails to cut, it is thrown into the scrap pile and 
sold for old iron. This is what we get out of it : Each 
man is born to go through life and carry with him his 
own personality. He may be "peculiar," as others see 
him, but let him be true to himself — his character — 
and everything about him will be symmetrical, har- 
monious. Whatever he is engaged in will bear the 
stamp of his personality — the very man himself 
breathes in and through his work. His joys, his sor- 
rows, his aims and ambitions ; his heart, his soul, will 
speak to you in what he does. He lives one moment 
at a time ; whether you find him in light or in shadow, 
in toil or at ease, he is the same man. Thus are all 
men when they are filling the Divine purpose. 
fl But take that man of strong personality, and let him 
hide himself under the cloak of popular custom; let 
him suppress his "peculiarities," and think, and say, 
and do, and be, just what would most please his 
friends; and, presto! What is it now! Why, just a 
hand-me-down — a piece of man for the scrap pile- 
something to be discarded because it has failed to do 

92 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

its work. The personality is gone, leaving only the 
man animal remaining — the God is out of him. 
I do not know : I may be mistaken. According to the 
orthodox way of thinking, I am mistaken: but it al- 
ways has seemed to me, even from early childhood, 
that the wrong conception has been placed upon man's 
privilege in relation to what we call his religion. The 
tendency of orthodoxy is to shape all men in the same 
mould: to make them think alike, pray alike, praise 
alike, and, so far as possible, appear alike. Men con- 
duct themselves about as they please during "busi- 
ness" hours, but so long as they are regular attendants 
at "Divine" service they are considered "solid" on re- 
ligious matters. We hear men talk of their business 
and their work as if their occupation were something 
separate and apart, and altogether distinct from their 
religion. Yes, and do you know, I have heard some 
surprisingly good people say of this one or that : "Mr. 
So-and-So is so engrossed in his business that he never 
can find time to do this, that or the other thing" — 
some "religious service," for instance. As if his re- 
ligion and his work were two distinct things, demand- 
ing the exercise of different qualities of his nature! 
Now, listen, dear heart, I would not say a word to 
cause a brother or sister to lose ever so small a par- 
ticle of faith in any belief that has given comfort to 
the soul, but did you never think how absurd it is to 
suppose that a man is going to win his paradise in 
some way distinct and apart from the service he ren- 
ders to humanity. And that service must be in giving 
expression to his Divine personality. 

93 



THE HEART OF THINGS 



IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT 

"Here Skugg lies, 
Snug as a bug in a rug." — Franklin. 

"/^ OING home to die!" How blessed the thought, 
^-J and yet with it there comes a tinge of sorrow, 
even to the happiest of us. But why the sorrow? fl Oh, 
the peace that will come to the heart, so tattered and 
torn by the storms of life, and the body racked with 
pain ; the shoulders stooped from carrying the burdens 
of this dear old work-a-day world! 
Going home to die, did you say? God speed you! 
The doors are open to receive you, and there in a shady 
nook the old arm chair awaits you, pillowed with in- 
numerable cushions, soft and rose-scented; and by its 
side a little chair for mother. Going home ! Ah, who 
would stay away? And die! Why not? 'Tis but a step 
forward — out into the valley where all titles are 
snuffed, and we travel on the passport of life's deeds ; 
wending our way to the New Jerusalem. A tear! 
What's that for? At parting! Who said we would part? 
Yes, yes ; we may never meet again in these old hulks 
of ours : I may not hear your voice, and look into those 
weary eyes ; I may not feel the pressure of your hand ; 
but what does that matter? I know you will be there, 
somewhere, and where you are, there shall I be also. 
We can be closer then e'en than now; yes, much 
closer. 

Then why those tears? 'Tis harder, and the responsi- 
bility is greater, to live today as I ought to live than 
die. To die is nothing ; to live is all. I go to my bed 

94 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and sleep: a dream comes over me, and I am trans- 
ported from this world to fairy land. I walk and 
talk to others — they talk and walk with me. My body 
and senses are dead ; perhaps as dead as they ever shall 
be — who knows? There is no pain; I do not have any 
fear. After a time I go back into this old hulk; con- 
sciousness returns, and I awake to begin anew the 
duties of life. 

Some day I shall steal away from this body of mine 
and will walk and talk to others; they will talk and 
walk with me ; and I shall be so happy I will not come 
back. Then they will say, "He's dead." And friends 
will be mournful and sad, and enemies cheerful and 
glad; and just over there where the flowers are most 
beautiful and fragrant, and the birds sing sweetest, I 
will be doing the thing I ought to do, and praising 
God! 



THE CARPENTER'S SON 

"There was a laughing devil in his sneer." — The Corsair. 

FIND a man who thinks alone — who forgets him- 
self and strives only to do the thing as nearly 
right as it can be done — who is ready to sacrifice him- 
self and all that he has, or is to have, in order to do 
it — find him, I say, and you have found a genius. Look 
him over carefully. Perhaps he is a very good fellow ; 
perhaps genial; but surely just an ordinary man. He 
may wear a blue rough shirt, with sleeves rolled up to 

95 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

the elbows. It little matters. When you have found 
him, and satisfied yourself that you have seen many a 
man finer looking than he ; that he isn't such an extraor- 
dinary individual after all; just shut your eyes a 
minute. Now open them again ! The man is gone, and 
in his stead before you stand his defamers. They al- 
ways follow close at his heels. They, like yourself, 
have also been disappointed in his appearance. They 
expected to see a show, not the genius ; forgetting that 
to see a genius one must be a genius. They, like you, 
again, are struck with wonder that a genius could look 
so common, and the cry goes up : "Isn't this the car- 
penter's son?" and at once the crown of thorns is cut 
for him. 



IF you have made up your mind that you are not 
going to reach heaven until Death calls, you will 
search a long while for it. 

££\ HEN we condemn a man unheard we do our- 
^^^ selves a great injustice, in that we blind our- 
selves to his virtues. 



jw 



ANY a man has got a hard fall from standing on 
so thin a thing as his dignity. 



T is no sin to worship at the shrine of female love- 
liness — if you do not make it so. 

9 6 



crowding™ e totem pole 

"He was a man 
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven 
To serve the devil in." — Pollock. 



HAVE said before, and I will here 
repeat, that it is psychologically im- 
possible for a person to grow in 
knowledge so long as he clings to 
the false notion that he is too stupid 
to learn. The boy and girl who leads 
the class in school is not the one 
who comes regularly before the 
teacher with the plea, "I can't." No 
man ever accomplished anything 
worthy in business, learning or art, 
with the stamp of inability upon 
him. No progress can be made until 
we lose sight of our defects and 
come into the knowledge that we 
can do things. Confidence, whether 
in the school room or the counting 
room, is the power that makes for 
progress and development. I CAN 
bottoms all physical and mental 
growth. It is, indeed, the secret of 
all growth, whether moral, physical, 
mental or spiritual. 
To teach the child at its mother's 
knee that it is sinful, and to follow 
this thought on through life, is the 
greatest curse that humanity has af- 
flicted upon itself. The belief be- 
97 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

comes a habit, and all through life harasses the man- 
hood of the race. Impressing upon the plastic child 
mind that it is a miserable object of God's mercy ; that 
it is habitually doing the things it ought not to have 
done, and leaving undone the things it ought to have 
done, and that there is no help in it, is downright 
cruelty. Such a crude notion about man's soul un- 
foldment is painful to witness. 

I remember one day at a little Sunday-school service 
in a mining camp, a minister of the Established Church 
was present, and the simple-hearted superintendent 
called upon him to lead the school in prayer. The 
unfortunate man did not have his prayer book with 
him, and was lost to know what to pray for. He 
mumbled a jumble of words, and closed with a loud 
"A-h-men." At the close of the service the parson 
warned the superintendent never to ask him to offer 
prayer again when he did not have his prayer-book 
along. The warning was quite unnecessary, for there 
was not a ten-year-old boy or girl in the school that 
could not have spoken the feelings of the heart more 
freely to the worshipful God than did that priest, who 
was supposed to "lead" the flock. 

U When men are brought up in the belief that service 
is a matter of sound and symbols, rather than of feel- 
ing and doing, and are taught from early childhood 
that spiritual growth is measured by one's glibness 
in mumbling the prayers prepared by priests of 
rhetorical tongue and steel heart, they are drawing 
dangerously near the fig leaf period and crowding 
close the totem pole. 

9 8 



THE HEART OF THINGS 



AT THE BECK OF FASHION 

"And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin 
Is pride that apes humility." — Coleridge. 

HOW prone men are — and women too — to do 
things it is considered "proper." Dame Fashion 
decrees that the waist shall assume a wasplike slen- 
derness, and on goes the corset. Custom tells man it 
is quite the thing to sip the booze and suck the amber 
and up goes the whisky and tobacco bill. 
If allowed freedom of thought and action — I was go- 
ing to say that — but it is hazardous to say what 
woman would do. She might and she might not. I do 
not know. But, giving her the benefit of the doubt, it is 
probable she would not go to the extreme that fashion 
demands. She does not do so because she enjoys it. 
She does so to be like others. Men do not saturate 
themselves with alcohol and nicotine because their 
bodies need it. They do not throw into themselves 
stuff that a hog would grunt at and turn tail to be- 
cause they like it. They do so because others do it. 
Man and his mate are the only creatures under heaven 
that will do what they know will injure their bodies 
and brains and impair the health of their offspring. 
Any other animal, fowl, insect or reptile will observe 
instinctively the thing wherein safety lies, and will not 
depart from the law that nature has made. Not so with 
man and woman. Those things that all sane men 
know will steal away their brains and deaden ambi- 
tion, are taken with a certain bravado, as if there were 
a spark of manliness in making of oneself a fool. 



99 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

I do not know, but I am led to believe that when men 
and women learn to appreciate their unlimited possi- 
bilities, and realize fully that they are gods in the 
chrysalis, they will quit this aping servility, this slav- 
ish bowing of the knee to fashion's foibles, and strive 
to make each life real and absolutely true. We but 
show our weaknesses when we confess by our acts 
that we cannot rise above the prevailing wills and 
customs of our day. Any woman can be a Tittering 
Jennie where all the rest are Tittering Jennies, but 
it takes the real virtues of strong womanhood to make 
of oneself a Florence Nightingale. Anything that 
wears pantaloons and a whisker can acquire the cigar- 
ette habit, with cocktail and red curtain attachments; 
Nature is as ready to help a fool be a fool, as she is 
to assist a Solomon to be a greater than Solomon. 



ioo 



ENTHUSIASM ££ GENIUS 

"I awoke one morning and found myself 
famous . ' ' — Byron. 



HE conformist is a man who will not 
grow. The non-conformist is a man 
who will not stop growing. The en- 
thusiast is a non-conformist, 
with vitality plus. The enthusi- 
astic boy is the pride of his 
father, and his mother's joy. Every- 
body else likes him, too. His en- 
thusiasm is recognized as vigorous, 
open-hearted honesty. It is intensi- 
fied gladness : life plus, with bubbles 
on the side. But enthusiasm in Little 
Bill and enthusiasm in Big Bill are 
two distinct commodities: one com- 
mands the applause of all men, and 
the other the haw-haws of the gal- 
lery, and the snickers of the parquet. 
Men who do not understand have a 
peculiar dislike for the enthusiastic 
individual. |f He is too blamed 
anxious to be a-doing things to 
please the man satisfied to let well 
enough alone. There are some men 
so dried up by jealousy and jaundice 
as not to understand the connecting 
link between the enthusiast and the 
genius. And some men are quite 

IOI 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

alarmed when their friends hint at enthusiasm in con- 
nection with their name and work. 
The fact is, there is just a step between the enthusiast 
and the genius. The enthusiast is laughed at for his 
earnestness ; while the genius is applauded for his en- 
thusiasm. The only real difference between them is 
that one has caught the world's applause, while the 
other is honored by its sneers. It is just a question of 
one's viewpoint to discover where the enthusiast leaves 
off and the genius begins. Today's sneers are quite 
often tomorrow's cheers. The enthusiast who is 
winked at today, may tomorrow be the genius on 
whose neck the world falls with eclat. 
ft To be an enthusiast, a man must exercise the zeal of 
a genius. He must have that intensity of earnestness; 
that strength and clearness of imagination; that hon- 
esty and boldness of heart, to stand unmoved amid all 
the jeers and cheers for what he holds to be true. A 
man must be morally and physically strong to be an 
enthusiast. He must be himself at whatever cost, and 
will cheerfully lose his life to save it. He throws not 
only his strength into his work, but also his person- 
ality, thus making his work a live thing to sing the 
praises of the man who made it, long after he is dead 
and buried. His body and his mentality are only the 
seed; the fruit of his life may not come until long 
years afterward. 

The man who is afraid to be winked at — afraid to 
brave the rules of conformity — will never have occa- 
sion to alarm himself or his friends about the perils 
of greatness. An enthusiast finds himself everlast- 

102 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

ingly a knocker of dead men's idols. That means a 
life of trial, of hard work and fainting not. From the 
man Jesus all down the ages it has been the enthusiast 
who has kept the world in growing pains. He has 
put Life abundant into business, into society, into 
home, into community. The sum of all faith, all hope, 
all work, is enthusiasm. It has covered the earth with 
its accomplishments, while lack of it has brought ruin 
to a vast army of good men. 



OUR THOUGHTS MAKE US 

"Learn the luxury of doing good." — Goldsmith. 

WHERE is the man who does not know that it is 
impossible to make oneself physically stronger, 
mentally clearer or spiritually deeper without exercise 
of the physical, mental and spiritual faculties. I saw 
an article in a magazine of recent issue which at- 
tempted to disprove the brain-food qualities of fish, 
and cited the mental condition of the Esquimaux and 
other fish-eating peoples, to show how absurd the be- 
lief. Without attempting to prove the brain-food 
qualities of fish meat, or meat of any kind, the writer 
would call attention to this fact, that brain develop- 
ment, like physical development, or soul development, 
depends entirely on the amount of exercise that is 
given to these faculties, and not on the character of 

103 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

food eaten. Anything tending to force the faculties 
into disuse retards their growth. To make life easy 
is to set it back. Through inactivity we lose our divine 
individuality, the only thing Godlike in us. 



JOY OF EXPRESSING LIFE 

"The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's 
teeth are set on edge." — Ezekiel. 

WHEN man reaches the atmosphere of the Divine, 
he will be Divine. And man may reach the 
atmosphere of the Divine just in proportion to the 
amount of unrestricted expression he permits Nature 
through him. Whether that will be in his present form 
and in this world, or in the future state, it matters 
little. He must grow into the Divine if he ever is to 
reach it. 

There is one natural state. That is the Divine State 
of Nature. Any other state is as unnatural as it is 
fictitious, artificial. The trees and plants and flowers — 
all forms of life, vegetable, animal and mineral — are 
a part of that natural state ; all are good, though none 
are perfect or can be perfect in this life; that is, ev- 
erything is susceptible to further growth. 
In the plant kingdom, was ever a bush budded and 
nursed to fruitage that bore the best that could be 
borne by that particular variety of bush or tree ? And 
in the animal kingdom, was ever an animal — man 

104 



THE HEART OF THING S 

or beast — born that achieved perfection, beyond which 
point none other could go ? fl It is true that no 
standard of perfection may be set for man or beast 
or any other creeping or breathing thing. The human 
mind cannot grasp the meaning of perfection. And, 
since perfection cannot be grasped by the human 
mind, man cannot hope to reach it in his present 
condition. But he may ever grow into nearer perfec- 
tion and eventually Nature must reach perfection 
through him. 

I sometimes think that man, in his efforts to be what 
Nature did not intend him, is missing the joy of a 
life of expression. The height of all orthodox teach- 
ing is that man shall be good. But no two minds will 
agree as to what constitutes being good, or being bad ; 
hence the man who wastes his time trying to "be 
good,'* fails to express the life that Nature intends 
for him. I do not believe that Nature ever demands 
of man, animal or any living thing, something he is 
incapable of doing or being. Man himself has set the 
standard, and as a result it is one that restricts him 
and makes him untrue to the natural tendencies in 
him. All of Nature is not "good" in the sense that man 
is taught to be good. We have to take the storm with 
the sunshine; the evil with the good; the happy with 
the sad; the bitter with the sweet. Without "bad" 
there could not be any good ; without sorrow no hap- 
piness ; without rain no harvest, fl Had there been no 
crucifixion there would have been no salvation; with- 
out persecution, no Savior. 
We cannot always understand; often we are gravely 

105 



THE~ HEART OF THINGS 

mistaken. We are mistaken because we think that 
God and Nature are perfect. Nature makes nothing 
perfect. Neither does God. The highest thing credited 
to Him — in fact, the thing made in His own image, — 
proved imperfect before it learned to know right from 
wrong. 

And yet, everything was made to attain perfection. 
Everything must grow into perfection, and by a nat- 
ural order of things. 

The flower is taken in its wild state and by a succes- 
sion of plantings and buddings is slowly brought to a 
higher state of beauty and usefulness. A similar 
process characterizes the growth of every other form 
of life. The dross is taken with the gold and by a 
succession of burnings and siftings the pure metal is 
brought forth. 

Why should there be this continual striving by Nature, 
with man and without man, through him and inde- 
pendent of him, towards the goal of perfection? Is it 
because the Power we call God is made happier by 
seeing it done, or is it because Nature is the Power 
Itself and that we as men, and our brothers, the trees, 
the plants, the birds, the beasts and the things that 
crawl and creep and swim, all are expressions of the 
same Life through which He or It, or whatever it be — 
God — is striving for greater perfection? If All Na- 
ture is the seen — the tangible — expression of the Power 
That Is, and man is but a part or phase of that ex- 
pression, then man is as near God today as he will 
be in any future state, and heaven then will be what 
heaven is today — now — and here. 

1 06 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Life presents this law of compensation that we can- 
not escape. Nor should we want to. We draw down 
in exact proportion to the amount we put up. Nature 
never gives something for nothing. The price is asked 
and must be paid. All she asks, and all she gives, 
is a Square Deal. And so, when we are content to 
live our little day in weakness and folly, Nature con- 
cludes that we haven't much desire to do anything 
else and leaves us alone. But our refusal to act does 
not impair Nature's progress. She strives for greater 
expression and reaches greater perfection — without 
us if we will not allow it with us. fl We lose in the 
refusal. Nature does not. 

I think the animals and insects and the plants and 
birds are happier than we because they act simply and 
without thought, and, therefore, give a truer expres- 
sion of the Life that animates them. 
While man is calling aloud to God for forgivenness, 
and trying to be good, the animals just feel that they 
never did quarrel with God and go right on living — 
true to the Expression of Life in them. And it does 
seem to me, that Life so expressed — true to the Na- 
ture of the vessel through which it comes, — is the life 
that counts in the long run, whether it be in man or 
beast, or the tiniest molecule in the One Great Whole. 



107 



A1H0UGHT ON HILL CHMBING 

"But on and up, where Nature's heart 
Beats strong amid the hills." — Milnes. 



FRIEND writes for information. He 
says : "The position that I have se- 
lected to fill is not above me. I think 
I have chosen one that will indeed 
be an honor to me if success will 
crown my wishes, which I have per- 
fect confidence that it will. What is 
it that I must do to prepare myself?" 
|f Keep hustling ! 

|f In these two words we have the 
gist of it all. Keep hustling ! Today 
— tomorrow — the next day — always ! 
We have never done enough so long 
as there is more to do. It is not 
enough to choose a calling and wish 
for success. Plod on! Keep plod- 
ding ! Don't stop to let someone pat 
you on the back for having decided 
what you want to be. It is well 
to have made a choice; yes, it is 
very well. But, dear Goodness ! that 
isn't enough! Mercy, no! 
Whatever your decision, look sharp 
that you do not spoil it by dwelling 
too long upon it. If Nothing counts 
so much for community advance- 
ment as individual advancement: 
and nothing aids in the individual's 
1 08 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

advancement so much as the forgetfulness of self in 
the effort to advance the aim and object of the indi- 
vidual. All advancement is gradual. And at every 
step effort is required. Every effort requires strength, 
either of character or of mind and body, and with 
every exertion there is growth sufficient to prepare one 
for the next step. 

It is always pleasing to hear an individual express a 
desire to run ahead of the pack. It is pleasing, be- 
cause before there came that desire in the man's heart 
there was the awakening of the individual. And an 
awakened individual means one that is prepared to 
grow. But have a care! After the awakening there 
comes, first the testing time; then the waiting time; 
then the dark ; then the light ; and after this, wealtli — 
not of soul, but of pocket. And herein is the test of 
endurance! All other trials are as nothing beside it. 
fl Oh, yes ; that is true. When wealth of pocket comes, 
the common thought has it that therein comes Success, 
but poor, indeed, were Success if the accumulation of 
wealth were the acme of it all ! 

About the first thing that confronts a man who starts 
out on the road to Success is a disappointment. This 
is followed by disappointment number two, and num- 
ber three, and four — and perhaps more. Things do 
not go the way you want them to. Then the weakling 
drops out and joins the croaking chorus. Complaints 
are laid at the head office, and all the while the fault 
is our own. We forget that somebody else is pleased 
if we are not ; and that the world is quite as happy at 

log 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

their pleasure as it would be at our own; and so, in 
that broad, universal sense, it is just as well. 
If you would win Success, leave croaking to the frogs ; 
they can do it much better than you. If your doorway 
is dark, and your foresight poor ; if you cannot see the 
bright side of the clouds overshadowing your path, go 
and immerse yourself in a bath tub; then go to bed. 
Tomorrow you will awake filled with radiating cheer, 
and prosperity will be budding on every bush, fl Boost 
yourself higher. No doubt the world can get along 
without you; but not so well as with you. If things 
are not coming your way, catch on, and get the most 
out of them as they fly by some other way. fl Think 
how lop-sided your life would be if all that is were 
yours, and came to you without any effort on your 
part. And if you would be one-sided with all, you 
would be one-sided with part — if it came to you with- 
out your putting forth any effort to get it. If you 
have to make no effort for what you have you lose the 
source of preparation for the next accomplishment, and 
without preparation you are sure to fail. To neglect 
preparation is to reject Success. \\ There isn't anything 
else for it. 

The man who is careless about keeping his appoint- 
ments, lavish in his promises, and negligent in keeping 
them, whether he be preacher, teacher, banker, mer- 
chant or roustabout — and one calling is as honorable 
as the other, provided the man who fills it is as faith- 
ful to his trust as the other — I say the man who prom- 
ises much and fails to come up with the goods, is 
doomed to stay a mediocre man — and he will deserve 

no 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

it. The sooner we realize this and wake up or stand 
aside and make room for another, the better will it be 
for us and everybody else. 

Men are usually more ready to blame others for their 
failures than to acknowledge their own weakness. 
\\ Adam started his sons off wrong in this respect — 
what did I tell you ! fl They believe if they could just 
have things to their liking, they would do wonders! 
But, really, no man ever succeeded who was able to 
travel all the distance from start to finish in an auto- 
mobile. No man could get up ambition enough to 
succeed in anything but a failure on a bed of roses. 
No doubt there be roses bordering the path of Success, 
but it is the thorns that spur a man on. ff Success is 
not easily won. fl It doesn't grow on low-hanging 
bushes. 

The man who is always grumbling is always fumbling. 
While he is complaining of this difficulty and that, 
and bemoaning his lot, somebody else by his side is 
working out problems and surmounting difficulties 
greater far than his. And without a whimper ! fl Why, 
bless you, friend; it never was intended that man 
should live without having obstacles to overcome. 
That story about Adam and Eve, and the "fall" of 
man, as we understand it, is a bit of moonshine. Life 
wouldn't be worth living if there were no trials to test 
us and give us more strength and courage. Every 
trial is a blessing. |[We plead for more grace, more 
faith, more love: and neglect to use what we have! 
Ask a professional gymnast what course to pursue that 
you may increase your muscular power, your agility 

in 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and bodily grace. Will he tell you to go home and 
he will send the "how" by special delivery? Not much! 
He lays out a course for you to follow that compels 
you to exercise what strength you have. And you can 
get no more until you do. Thus we find it in all the 
faculties of the brain and heart. We grow strong in 
the things we exercise. That is why obstacles make 
for Success — if we overcome them. Each gives us 
more strength for the next. 

The aim of every man is to succeed in achieving his 
standard of Success. What this standard is each man 
knows for himself, and keeps it to himself — or should. 
We talk about Success as if it were a mysterious 
Something always at the other end of a long-distance 
telephone. We feel that we can talk to it and about 
it, but cannot get in direct touch with it. This is a 
tremendous error. To succeed now — this moment — 
that is Success — the only Success worth striving for. 
Succeed in what? Why, in Service. In the measure 
we serve others, we succeed, fl In the words of Geo. 
Knox: "The more you give, the more you have left. 
Talent begets talent." 

There are certain fundamental principles that every 
man must adhere to to be successful, no matter what 
legitimate business he is engaged in. First, there 
must be faith in God and Man. Many very pious 
people that I have known have had much faith in God, 
but treat their fellows as if every man were a rogue. 
Naturally they fail in everything they undertake. 
Then, to be successful it goes without saying that we 
must be honest: it is no secret that strict integrity is 

112 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

the foundation of every legitimate business success. 
Honesty begets honesty, just like love begets love. 
Then, too, we must not limit our ambition : work, not 
drudgery, but healthful, honest work is the price of all 
Success. In this, as in all things, if we "pay as we 
go" the price is not excessive. And then, too, we 
must depend on ourselves; exert our own ability; be 
economical, but not penurious; courteous, careful and 
thoughtful; and must never be defeated by defeat. 
The man who is always apologizing; who shrinks 
from responsibility; who shirks, and sluffs and lops; 
who never dares to act independently, but waits to be 
shoved along, never will stand deuce high in anything. 
He is humanity's curse. The lazy man, and the man 
who is a living apology, needs no after punishment. 
They are already damned. God wants men who dare 
look him in the face; who can stand upright before 
the world and defy defeat. 

To Succeed, then, let us be honest : own up like a man 
that you are the cause of what you apologetically call 
your "ill-luck." We fritter away valuable time each 
day. Failing to look sharp, we do not see the oppor- 
tunities that are around us and they pass us by. 



SIMPLICITY AND GREATNESS. 

"The world knows nothing of its greatest men." — Henry 
Taylor. 

WHEN I was somewhat younger than I am today, 
and therefore less liable to discriminate, I was 
asked by a companion: "Hank, do you think you 

113 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

ever will be a great man?" The idea amused me, and 
I smiled audibly. Couldn't help it. fl It was so funny. 
fl Did you ever try to define greatness? You would 
fail if you did. If you could touch elbows with the 
men who have been known as great men, what char- 
acter of man do you think you would find? Would 
you find greatness, as we understand it, personified? 
Indeed, you would not. You would find simplicity 
incarnate. |f The great man is he who does what lies 
before him now better than anyone else could do it, 
and he does it without thought of greatness, fl He 
does it to get it done. No man was made great in the 
twinkle of an eye. He may come into prominence sud- 
denly. His name may never have been heard before, 
but all the while since boyhood he has been preparing 
for just the thing which is to bring him into promi- 
nence like a meteor. He was a great boy before he be- 
came a great man — great because he was wise enough 
to be content to be faithful in the duties devolving upon 
him as a boy. When a child, he was simply and truly 
himself. He acted for himself; he spoke for himself; 
he thought for himself; he was none other than him- 
self — and did not want to be. He lived his own life 
as he understood it, regardless of the jeers of his 
enemies, and in spite of the applause of his friends. 
When misunderstood, he did not stop to complain nor 
to explain. He did what was next at hand. Thus he 
was as great in childhood as in his manhood, and as 
humble in one as the other. Doing what was before 
him as a child, however disagreeable it may have 
been, he grew into manhood in the spirit of duty 

114 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

doing. Preparation for the greater responsibilities 
came with the execution of the lesser. 

The silly world applauds him as a man, because he 
has caught the public's fancy, but the time of his true 
greatness was when, as a boy, unknown to anyone 
but his schoolmates, and perhaps by them dubbed 
"Shortie," he used to do things just a little bit better 
than any of the other boys could do them. 
Man wins greatness because he does not run after it. 
He does not think anything about it. All that he must 
care to know is, what is his duty, and, knowing it, he 
must do it. jf And he never can afford to think much 
about what the world is saying either of him or his 
duty. "Socrates won immortality because he did not 
want it," says Hubbard, "and the Sophists secured 
oblivion because they deserved it." 
The man who thinks about being great, never is. "I 
am a man of some importance," said a caller at the 
Segnogram home one day. He may have been, I do 
not know; but it would have been an easy matter to 
mistake him for a common thing about the size of 
nuisance, fl If you and I are not great enough to 
luminate the drudgery of life in the simplicity of 
child-like faith, we never shall be great enough to 
draw the fire of the God of Genius, fl And if we are 
great enough, we shall not need to advertise the fact. 
And so, dear heart, be simple — be simple. 



"5 



AND NATURE SMHES 

"What a gloomy thing it is not to know 
where to find one's soul." — Hugo. 



HY should there be so much that is 
contrary to nature in what man has 
created in his religious life? We 
are lost in wonder sometimes when 
we see with what ease Nature does 
things, and compare with it the pol- 
icy of man in his aspirations to 
reach a plane beyond himself. 
Nature never will give something 
for nothing. To reach a given point 
in life we must pass through cer- 
tain stages of growth — certain disci- 
pline — certain training, fl We reach 
heaven through hell. 
We do not expect in the child the 
understanding of the man. Nor do 
we look for a natural understanding 
in the man whose head has been 
turned in the direction of life's 
veneer. Therefore, when we see a 
man endeavoring to harmonize Na- 
ture Thoughts with those of the 
Unnatural, and striving to twist 
Nature into his poor, misshapen 
ideal of man, we pity him for his 
blindness, but we do not condemn 
him. Nature lets him go ahead; 
she does not become excited at his 
116 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

strenuous efforts, nor does she create a disturbance 
in her efforts to teach him a better way. She just 
allows him to go his way and do the best he can, 
without ever changing in ever so minute a degree her 
system. She knows that no effort can be entirely lost, 
and, while man may bring upon himself an ungodly 
amount of misery and woe, she is content to feel that 
all of it is required to bring him into a more natural 
state of being. And so she sits calmly enthroned 
behind the veil and looks on, knowing that one day 
man will recognize his folly and come to her for a 
clearer conception of life. She knows that man is 
doing the best he can with the light he has. She 
would help him do more but may not, owing to the 
man's unpreparedness, and his inability to perceive 
things in a natural way. She throws out this guard 
and that, to prevent him drifting away, often holding 
him in a prison cell, on a bed of sickness, or banishing 
him to the Isle of Patmos, where she might talk with 
him of the things he seeks so diligently to know, and 
yet which are too simple for him to learn in the 
superficiality of his position. 

I sometimes think that Nature is what we know as 
the All Love. She is so big, so Infinite, so Divine, 
that every tiny particle of the What-Appears-to-Be- 
but-Is-Not is out of her, and she sits in all the majesty 
of her simplicity, the Queen of the Universe of the 
All Wise. She is so pure she never has known the 
absurdity of what man pictures within himself and 
calls sin; and so wise that she knows there isn't any 
right and wrong of things, but that all is right and 

117 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

good did we but have the heart and scope to under- 
stand. She would teach man the harmony of doing; 
that in service only is Life and that what man calls 
Death is nothing more than a transition from a lower 
to a higher form of expression. 

I uncover the head to Nature. She is divinely good 
in that she does not interfere with man. She permits 
him to do as he will, knowing that in the doing, 
whether it be what we call good or bad, he grows into 
the Being Back of All. 

She would assist him would he but let her. But 
Nature is not blind. She knows man better than he. 
knows himself, and witnessing his efforts, and realiz- 
ing how he has reversed the natural law of the uni- 
verse in his efforts to accomplish her purpose, she 
hides her face in darkness and waits. 
How long, oh God ! how long ! And all the while man 
continues to strive against Nature in the belief that he 
is fighting sin! Dear me! dear me! What a tre- 
mendous amount of energy is wasted in this old, old 
fight against the devil! What millions are spent in 
trying to swamp him! And all the while, Nature the 
Eternal, for whom all the fight is said to be made, 
utters never a word. While man and priest fling their 
voices loose on the desert air, Nature quietly, myste- 
riously works goodness up into life by giving expres- 
sion to the Power Back of All. fl The sorrow of it is 
that while she is thus engaged, man is so engrossed 
in the fight against Expression- — so determined to 
suppress the flow of the Abundant Life — that he fails 

118 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

to see beyond the insignificant, and wastes his sub- 
stance on earth's stony places. 

Why do some men get so much more out of life than 
others? The answer is simple: because they see so 
much more in life than others. They are in touch 
with Nature — feel the pulsation of Nature's heart; 
know her purpose; recognize her infinity — and on top 
of this — and this is the great point — they feel their 
kinship with her in all other forms of expression, and 
realize that they are the Infinite today and will be the 
Infinite tomorrow, wherever tomorrow is spent. 
When we rise to a higher plane and look beyond the 
narrow valley in which orthodoxy has placed us; 
when we mount the peaks and see below the hills and 
valleys heretofore trodden by us; we lose ourselves in 
wonderment, for we see with new eyes the landscape 
of Nature Life. And those things that loomed so 
large ; those weaknesses that caused us such pain and 
sorrow; those false notions about the Power Back of 
Us, they disappear one by one, and we learn to pray a 
new prayer: "Thy Kingdom has come." 



119 



MADE HIS OWN HELL 

'None has understood you, but I understand you; 
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself; 
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in 
you." — Walt "Whitman. 



ALSE teaching, and a mistaken idea 
of modesty, has given life many 
distressing vagaries that damn men's 
souls here, and carry them to their 
graves half done. I do not know 
that I ever witnessed a sadder sight 
than that of the life of a young man 
of sterling training in the science of 
metallurgy, a general favorite in so- 
cial and what the world calls re- 
ligious circles, and a master in the 
art of knowing how to do hard 
work. He was one of these "honor- 
bright" fellows — a man whose word 
was better than his bond — in whom 
everybody had confidence, for so far 
as any one knew, he did not have a 
vicious habit. But beneath the coat 
of the faithful church worker — be- 
hind the life of the man we knew as 
the acme of religious perfection — 
there stalked a hidden devil more 
vile than that of the libertine, and 
more thirsty for the man's life-blood 
than would have been the god of a 
thousand thousand leeches. 
I knew the young man several years 
before the incident I am about to 
120 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

record for the first time. In all that time I never 
knew him to act anything but the gentleman. Faithful 
in the least and the greatest duties that were thrust 
upon him, he never wanted for an opportunity to do 
good unto others. 

Imagine my horror when, one bright Monday morn- 
ing, in the little mining camp where we were living, 
the newspaper gave this account of the young man's 
death: "This morning the camp was startled by the 
sad intelligence that T — C — had been drowned in 
the lake. The report was based upon the fact that a 
boat had been picked up on the beach containing the 
clothing of C — , together with bath towel, etc. The 
general supposition is that he was taking a swim in 
the lake late at night, as was his custom, using the 
boat as his dressing raft, and that he was taken with 
cramps in the chilly water. Thus will be explained 
the tragic ending of one of the noblest characters that 
ever has hit the camp. Honorable in all things, ever 
thoughtful and earnest in his conduct toward others; 
mindful always of their good, he sought relaxation in 
the cooling waters — and did not return. How the end 
came — where he took his last dive — will never be 
known, for he was alone, and it was late at night." 
That was all. fl People do not express their sorrow or 
their sympathy in words, in one of these mining 
camps. They have a better way. And they went 
about their work after a few hours as if the sun had 
ever shone bright and warm. And there T — G — 
sleeps today. The lake is as deep as the mountains 
surrounding it are high. Below the surface of the 

121 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

water there is a current so strong as to draw the 
strongest swimmer down, and once a body gets into 
its icy grasp there is no escape. Down, down it is 
carried; how far nobody shall ever know, but far 
enough to be buried for ever and aye, for these waters 
never give up their dead. A mighty tomb, whose 
surface is as capricious as a woman's love, soothing as 
a mother's prayer; in calm not dead, in storm not 
mournful; ever majestic and beautiful — a fit resting 
place for a character like his. 

|f But there was one in that mining camp who knew 
something of the life of the young man that the young 
man did not dare tell and live. And yet he was mighty 
brave. A hero was he. He was a savior, but was not 
nailed upon the cross. 

|f Before taking his last swim in the cold waters of the 
lake, T — C — wrote briefly what he dared not make 
known and live. |f And he told it with his pen 
dipped in his life's blood. It was his last wish that 
the story of his life be made known. He gave his life 
that it might be published, and to me has fallen the 
painful duty of carrying out the wish of the man who 
counted it joy to lay down his life for his brethren. 
I give the story as it was given me. It is the wail of 
a soul lost in the darkness of night, yet brave enough 
to speak the word of warning and sound the danger 
signal, and when this is done to stand face to face with 
his God and say: "Father, I did the best I could." 
|f He addressed himself to the "Church authorities, 
medical men, schoolmasters, parents, and those having 
the training of children throughout the world: 

122 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

"A lost, despairing soul, on the way to hell and 
destruction, wants a word with you ere he goes. Have 
you done your duty to the young under your charge, 
in instructing them about themselves? Have you told 
them of the horrors and dangers of self-abuse? And 
if not, why have you neglected your duty to those 
whom God has placed under your care? 
"Let me tell you my history. My father died when 
I was only six years of age, and at eight I was placed 
in a large school near London, Eng., where this vice 
flourished unchecked all the time I was there, for over 
five years. Not a word of instruction ever came to 
those fatherless boys except from one gentleman, a 
man over fifty years of age, dressed in a silk hat and 
frock coat, who used to take great interest in the 
swimming performances. This villain, although pos- 
sessed of a grown-up family of his own, used to secure 
the good wishes of the boys by his generosity and 
then, under the guise of his interest in swimming, 
used to teach them the awful practice which I dare 
not name again. As he was allowed to preach in the 
school chapel on some occasions, and was looked up 
to by everybody connected with the institution, what 
blame to the poor children that many have fallen 
under this terrible evil, fl A fine swimmer myself, I 
came directly under his notice, and his baneful in- 
fluence has cost me not only my own life, but has 
wrecked and ruined many others, including the purest, 
sweetest girl that ever lived. I left the school a bril- 
liant scholar at the head of the science classes, and 
winning a scholarship at the Government School of 

123 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

Mines at South Kensington. For three years I re- 
mained there, living at home meanwhile, where I had 
not the instruction of a single man resident. Since 
then I have always attended Divine services regularly 
and have been a Sunday-School and Bible Class 
attendant almost all the time, yet this subject, more 
important to the young even than the evils of the 
liquor traffic, has never been brought home to me by 
those whose duty I consider it was. My life has been 
moral in every other respect, for I have always 
guarded against the evils which have been pointed out 
to me, such as drinking, gambling and loose living, 
but how was I to know the awful fate that was in 
store for me? 

"Oh, rouse to your duties in this matter! Ye churches, 
ye doctors, ye schoolmasters, ye Bible-class teachers, 
ye parents! The vice is hidden, and so all the more 
dangerous. It is thought to be natural by nearly all, 
though the voice of conscience tells them feebly that 
it is not right, fl Speak out ! for the demons of hell 
are laughing at my helplessness! Away with false 
modesty: tell the young man of his danger ere it is 
too late; ere he is confronted with the insane asylum 
or the suicide's grave. 

"Just twenty-six years of age; in fine robust health, 
with every advantage that a young man could desire 
in business, social and religious circles, I find myself 
going to hell without anyone being the wiser; loved 
ones, and the girl I have won, soon to be filled with 
anguish and misery unspeakable because someone 
neglected his duty in the past. 

124 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

"On two occasions only I might have had the instruc- 
tion which would have saved my body and soul, but 
on each I just missed it ; my misfortune. 
"For Christ's sake, speak out boldly. Don't hide the 
truth under a bushel. Let not the cry be from thou- 
sands of ruined boys and girls, 'Nobody ever has told 
me before.' 

"I shall not die in vain if only one other be saved the 
awful agonies through which I have passed to my 
death, to be damned for ever, fl Shame forbids me to 
tell my name, so let me rest where the devil has placed 
me." 

A sad story this. And yet, many might be told that 
are no more joyful. So bound up in the idea of 
"saving souls" for the imaginary heaven far away 
that they have not time to teach the boys and girls 
that to maintain a clean, moral life, and a shining 
countenance here and now is heaven, as much as it 
ever will be, and that to see God and be like Him it is 
only necessary for us to express Him in a natural way, 
in and through the work we do. 



MAN'S INHUMANITY TO GOD. 

"Man makes God in his own image."— Fra Elbertus. 

T AST night the citizens of San Francisco went to 
■•— ' their beds happy and contented with life and with 
themselves. This morning they were rudely awakened 
by an earthquake shock that tumbled them from their 
beds. Great massive buildings of cement and brick 

125 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

and steel and stone were twisted and torn, and their 
towers toppled and fell into the streets. The devasta- 
tion was terrible enough, but it was nothing compared 
with the horrors of the fire that followed. Today the 
city of the Argonauts is in flames, and tomorrow will 
be in ashes. Three hundred thousand souls are made 
homeless, and the loss of property will amount to half 
a billion dollars. The awful experiences of those brave 
people will never be known. Hundreds were killed 
beneath falling walls; thousands were injured, and 
other thousands lost all they had but what they could 
save in a pillow-case. Their loss and their suffering 
was appalling. 

America never witnessed anything like it in all her 
history, and the world few catastrophies that have 
compared with it in their devastation. Already we 
hear talk about "the hand of God," and He is blamed 
for all of it. 
If Poor God! 

When Mount Pelee belched lava, and wrought such 
destruction in the fertile valley over which it looks, 
and thousands of lives were lost, and millions of dol- 
lars' worth of property left in ruins, there was more 
talk about "the hand of God." 
ft Poor God! 

When Vesuvius renewed her activities recently and 
wrought more havoc to the good people living near, 
when thousands were driven from their homes and 
left destitute, there was more talk about "the hand of 
God." f Poor God! Aye, poor God! 
It was ever thus! 

126 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

When we do not understand the cause of things we 
lay it to God. fl Every war, every great catastrophe, 
every horror that leaves the world in tears, and brings 
pain to the heart of humanity, is credited to God. 
"He knows about it all ; He knows ; He knows !" Yes, 
dear heart ; He knows. 

But volcanic eruptions are as natural as sunshiny 
days, though not so frequent. They are like boils on 
the neck of mother earth, through which exudes that 
which she must throw off. The cause, according to 
the accessible facts, may be placed to the accumula- 
tion of steam or vapor deep down in the earth, and 
the throwing of lava and ashes is accounted for by 
the displacement of millions of tons of rock miles 
below the earth's surface. 

And earthquakes, as is well known, are due to natural 
subterranean concussion. While the more violent, 
destructive shocks are not of frequent occurrence, 
except in localities where the earth's formation seems 
to be more easily affected, yet slight tremors are of 
surprising frequency, as is shown by the delicate 
instruments now in use. We speak of the earth as a 
terra firma, because we do not know any better. But 
the fact is, the earth is anything but a terra firma. 
Why man should seek to lay all these horrible catas- 
trophies up against God is beyond comprehension. 
Perhaps because man still believes that "God is a 
jealous God, and visits the sins of the fathers upon 
the children." And so when man creates sin for him- 
self, and looks for God to get jealous, he expects Him 
to send punishment upon him. 

127 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

I wonder if God coaxed those people of Pompeii to 
build their city under the crater's mouth so He could 
run rivers of lava over them and bury them in hot 
ashes ? fl I wonder if God decoyed the people up 
under the brow of Mount Pelee so they could be 
caught like rats in a trap and buried under tons of 
ashy sand? fll wonder if God put greed into the 
hearts of men and induced them to erect these sky- 
scraping buildings that they might topple over with 
the first heavy quake of the earth and start fires to 
wreak vengeance upon the thousands of poor unfor- 
tunates who never drew a cent of the immense profits. 
If I wonder — but what is the use? fl "It is God's will," 
says man, and God does not deny the accusation. 
But oh, dear me! What a shame! What a shame, 
that man will blindly go to the limit of reason in his 
mad groping for wealth and place and power, bring- 
ing destruction upon himself, and then blame God for 
the coming of the devastation, ff When we hear of 
such a horror as that which has befallen San Fran- 
cisco, we feel sad, and tears of sympathy flow, but 
when we can take ourselves out of the hearing of the 
tolling church bells, the moans of the distressed, the 
cry of the hungry, and the sound of the praying 
priests, who thank God they are not as other men 
since they have been spared the destruction that has 
come to others ; I say, when we can get out of hearing 
of these things, and draw close to Nature's heart in 
the quiet of the forest of our own thoughts, we may 
hear the sweet lullaby of Her Mother Love as She 
draws the curtain upon all of it; and can feel the 

128 



THE HEART OF THINGS 

sorrow that is Hers because her children will bring 

pain upon themselves. 

Poor children. 

Poor God. 

Poor Earth. 

Poor Devil. 



Next to the woman who does not gossip, the noblest 
work of God is the man who does not grouch. 

You will find soft spots in this hard old world if you 
carry a cushion for your neighbor to sit upon. 

The trouble with most men who have troubles, is that 
they look for an outward transformation without an 
inward illumination. 

When we forget ourselves and speak the word fresh 
from the heart, we are liable to tell more of Truth 
than we knew we knew or could have imagined. 

It is not fair to judge a man by his achievements. We 
can measure only his ability that way. The man the 
world thinks a failure often has in his heart grander 
motives than the man of wealth even could imagine. 



129 



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